by Helle Helle
Late in the afternoon I decided to go and get my bike from the electricity substation. I hadn’t got round to it before, for various reasons. I left a note for Lars in case he happened to come back early. Then I changed my mind and crumpled it up. I put one of his shirts on, it nearly came down to below my shorts. I was barefoot inside my trainers. I looked into the front gardens along the way, I would have liked a front garden, with boxwood and ivy. The wind got under my shirt and lifted it up, it felt nice and cool.
There were still a lot of skylarks, and a pair of lapwings in the middle of the road. It struck me that I hadn’t been in the countryside all summer, only in the town, it was the first time in my life. Many of the fallow fields were bright pink, the fireweed was in season and I thought about the word as I went, it wasn’t one you forgot in a hurry. The same with will-o’-the-wisp and horsefly. Washing flapped in a farmhouse garden, a breath of fabric softener in a gust of wind.
My bike was where I’d left it. I decided to cycle around a bit, I didn’t know what else to do. The chain rattled as I set off. I went back to the nearest T-junction and turned left, then biked on through the open countryside. I thought about Lars, his face and chest, and then further down. In a month he’d be back at college, I pushed the thought away. I started making a little noise whenever it came to mind, a whistling sound from between my teeth while I shook my head. I could make other thoughts go away like that too. One Sunday morning I’d woken up early and lay in bed looking around the room. My strappy high heels were under the table. We’d had wine the night before and after the first bottle I’d insisted we open another. I’d gone out to the kitchen to get the corkscrew, the driving instructor was wiping a dish. I searched through the drawer. When I found the corkscrew I held it up in the air and slammed the drawer shut. The driving instructor looked at me and I looked back into his eyes just a moment too long. He tipped his head to the side under the light and I held his gaze. He looked like he didn’t know what to make of it, but he smiled at me all the same. I smiled back, then turned jauntily on my heels. That Sunday morning I felt ashamed of myself, I made the whistling sound into the duvet. I didn’t even like the driving instructor. Eventually Lars woke up and asked if I was feeling sick, and it was almost like I was.
The chain came off at the edge of a wood. I got off and turned the bike upside down, it was a job getting it back on. The oil was all dried up, but I still got my hands dirty. It got on my shorts as well. I wiped my hands with some dock leaves and decided to find my way home next time I came to a signpost. I got on again.
Just after the wood there was a yellow farmhouse with a flagpole at the front. There were cars parked all down the side of the driveway, one of them was the old Volvo. I turned and biked back to the edge of the wood. I laid the bike down on the ground and went in among the trees and stood and watched. I could smell the suckling pig, a faint chinking of glasses came from the garden. A car came into view at a bend and beeped its horn all the way up to the cobbles. There was a slamming of car doors and laughter. A second later the whole party laughed at once, an eruption.
I went back to the bike and tried to pedal home from memory. It fell short and I got lost. There were run-down cottages with open doors and news on the radio. Gulls flocked around an early harvester in the late sun.
When I got back to Haslev I went up to the bedsit to get some money, then biked down to the phone box and rang Dorte. There was no reply. I rang my parents, it was my dad who answered. They were having coffee and had been busy in the greenhouse, there was some trouble with condensation. He asked how things were doing at the teachers’ association. I said things were fine and we were probably going to Anholt. Then I ran out of change and told him to give my love. I tried Dorte again, but she still wasn’t in. I bought an ice lolly at the corner shop and took it back with me to the bedsit. I lay in bed and ate it. Some rhythmic noises were coming from the next room. I got up and opened the balcony door and tossed the lolly stick into the bushes. I went for a walk. I walked back. I didn’t know what to do with myself, or how to go on.
31.
My bungalow needed decorating for Christmas. I bought two bundles of fir branches and tried to join them together in a long garland to go over the front door. I’d seen one in a magazine, with baubles and snow. After about halfway I gave up. My hands and forearms were all scratched from the wire and my nails were broken, it was a stupid idea. I crumpled the unfinished garland and put it out of the way in the shed. As I turned to go back I almost tripped over the abandoned picnic basket. It occurred to me that I could fill it up with the fir branches and put it on the front doorstep, it would do nicely as a Christmas decoration.
The ticket-office guy had been over to see me twice. His name was Knud. The second time he came his girlfriend was at her sister’s over on Fyn. I’d bought a tin of olives and a bottle of red wine and put it out on the table with two upturned glasses. As soon as I saw him leave the station I turned the glasses the right way up. I opened the door before he even knocked and led him into the front room. He’d brought four chocolate turtles with him. We had a laugh about that, then we sat down. He took an olive.
‘Have you got any music?’ he said.
‘Only the radio.’
‘Don’t you listen to music, then?’
‘Yes, on the radio.’
‘Okay.’
‘Do you want some wine?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Go on, then. Thanks. Nice olives.’
‘They’re from Irma. In Copenhagen,’ I said.
‘Irma, right,’ he said, and then he got up and came and put his hand on my neck. We kissed each other. We got down on the floor and knocked over a chair, we pulled and tore, my leg stuck up in the air like a white post. It wouldn’t do in the front room without curtains. We hobbled into the bedroom. The Hamburg express came through, a slight distraction in the corner of his eye, then he shook the rest of his trousers off and did his little skip. He’d done it the last time too. I’d thought then it might be first-time nerves. His body was firm and triangular, we thumped against the slats. Apart from that we didn’t connect. We flopped apart and sighed separately, it felt better then. We talked about houses as opposed to flats. His girlfriend wanted to move to Vordingborg, she wanted to have a baby as well, that was what frustrated him. When did you know the time was right? If you didn’t know, did it mean it wasn’t? We fetched the wine and the tin of olives and sat with pillows in our backs and a candle in the windowsill. He was so excited by the new perspective on the trains, it was quite touching. I put my hand on his upper arm.
That was ten days earlier. Now I thought about him more than was good for me, reality was something else. His girlfriend still shook her tea towels out of the kitchen window.
I invited Dorte over for mulled wine. I bought ginger snaps and gingerbread creams from the baker’s to go with it, they had three for ten kroner. I ate one on the way back to make sure they were all right. She came over after work, it fitted in with Hardy’s badminton. She’d got herself some new clothes, Christmassy trousers with a slight flare and a cardigan. She brought me some walnuts, a whole bag, it was practically a sack. Plus a piece of brie, some honey and two jars of pickled herring.
‘In case there’s a Christmas party and you need to bring something,’ she said. ‘Are they having one on your course?’
‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Just drinks, I think.’
‘Just as well, it only makes your bum fat, all that food,’ she said, and we laughed, she’d just sent a buffet off to Ortved. She’d lost weight herself. It was due to her busy season, she always felt sick in December. That, and the dark. It took it out of her, just getting up in the mornings not being able to see a hand in front of her face. She sat at the table in the kitchen staring out into the darkness with her coffee every morning before six, while Hardy snored like a tractor. She lost her spirit in December, just when it mattered most. People were queuing down the street for
her specials, she’d had to take on help.
‘A fat little thing, but good as gold,’ she said, then took a drag on her cigarette. I could tell she was feeling down. Her look was glazed. She’d been to view a flat on the outskirts of Næstved, a new development by the roundabout.
‘I’ve always liked Næstved, you know that,’ she said, and her expressionless eyes grew moist. I went up and put my arm around her, she sniffed and indicated the paper bag from the baker’s on the table.
‘Let’s see what you’ve got, eh?’ she said, and then the tears came, and she laughed, and opened the bag with one hand and peered inside. ‘Gingerbread creams! You’ve not spent all your money, have you?’ she said, dabbing her cheeks with her forearm and smudging her new cardigan with mascara in the process. She rubbed it, and made it worse.
‘Oh, look at me,’ she said and sniffed hard again. ‘I’ve been wanting to look nice. What a lovely job you’ve made of the table. It’s been such a long day, and I’ve been so looking forward.’
‘Do you want me to do your feet?’ I said.
‘Ah, would you? No, you mustn’t, not now. You must be dead tired.’
‘I’ll get the bowl. You sit down over there,’ I said, and she stood up, her mascara had run under her eyes as well.
‘Talking about dying, do you remember Riborg?’ she said with her feet in the hot water, it was a story that always cheered us up no end. We ran into Riborg on our bikes one summer at Ganges Bro, it was a Sunday lunchtime and we’d been out picking strawberries. It had nearly been the death of us, the temperature was almost thirty degrees. We’d cycled eighteen kilometres and the only thing we could think about was getting home and having something to drink, we were getting ratty with each other. Riborg was standing there with her bike just before the viaduct, there was a pillow in her wicker basket.
‘There’s Riborg. Hello, Riborg,’ Dorte called out as we rode past, but Riborg waylaid us.
‘Wait a minute, Dorte, where are you going?’
We got off our bikes and wheeled them back. She asked about the strawberries. We asked about the pillow, she was just taking it over to someone she knew.
‘I lost Jørgen, you know,’ she said, and Dorte did, which might have been why we’d just carried on at first. Not that Dorte couldn’t talk about death, but there was a long illness to get through before that: failed courses of treatment, an acute kidney infection, frothy urine, a change of medicine that gave renewed hope, then the relapse, fluid retention and failing strength, and then finally the end, as unexpected as death always is, even when you know it’s coming, on the kitchen floor at five o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon. Just before dinner. I looked at Dorte and saw the beads of sweat on her upper lip, she was white as a sheet and leaned against her bike for support. Then we got the story all over again, only from a different point of view, starting with Jørgen’s physical form before the first and second periods in hospital. Dorte dabbed her lip with the back of her hand, she stood there swaying. I reached out for a big strawberry in her basket and gave it to Riborg. Riborg ate it. It was a good one. I gave her another and her narrative tailed away. We were able to get going again after that. Dorte always thanked me for that move with the strawberry. Riborg, love, she’d been about to say. Death’s a terrible thing, but it’s time you got a grip.
She sat with her feet in two plastic bags under the table, I’d put the lotion on thick. She groaned when I rubbed it in, her legs were all stiff from her long days in the shop. After the mulled wine I did her nails, she picked a baby-pink polish that matched her slippers.
‘Not that there’s much point. Hardy won’t be seeing my toes much longer anyway,’ she said.
‘What’s he going to do?’
‘He doesn’t know he needs to do anything yet, I’m afraid.’
‘Are you?’
‘Am I what?’
‘Afraid for him.’
‘No. I’m not actually. It’s not that at all. It’s more me, I’m forty-five now, aren’t I?’
‘I never think of you as being that old.’
‘I don’t either, mostly. No, Hardy’ll be all right. He’s got Samson.’
‘Do you want a ginger snap?’
‘Thanks,’ she said. She bit off a tiny corner, she could hardly swallow it.
Her feet slid around in her shoes from all the lotion. We had a laugh about it and she had another cigarette for the road out on the step. The sky was pitch black, the temperature was down to freezing. In the gap between the flats we could just see the Christmas garland on the main street picked out by the street lights. It swayed faintly.
‘There’s a guy who works over at the station. In the ticket office,’ I said.
‘Over there?’
‘Yeah. But he lives with someone.’
‘That never stopped anyone growing fond.’
‘I know. But I don’t think I’m that fond, that’s the trouble.’
‘Well, that’s no good. What a pity. Are you sure?’
‘I think so.’
‘If in doubt, then leave well alone. You have to feel it, right down to your fingertips.’
‘Not all the time, surely?’
‘Oh, yes. All the time.’
‘Who says?’
‘I do. So it has to be true, doesn’t it? Ha. Take care of yourself, won’t you, love?’ she said, and flicked the end of her cigarette onto the lawn. We hugged.
‘Thanks for doing my feet. Lovely that, isn’t it?’ she said with a nod at the picnic basket.
‘Some people from Copenhagen left it behind.’
‘I’m glad you’ve made friends there,’ she said, and smiled. She stepped on her cigarette end on her way over the grass and bent down to pick it up. She turned and waved before getting into the van.
32.
The summer holiday came to an end. Lars was back at college, only he couldn’t get up in the mornings, he kept putting the alarm forward. Other times he turned the clock on its face and pulled the duvet up over his head. I squirmed out of the foot end and opened the balcony door. I put an old T-shirt dress on and went to the kitchen, I made an omelette from a couple of eggs and a sliced tomato. I carried it back into the room together with the coffee and put it on the table, then sat and waited for him to wake up. Every now and then I picked up the alarm clock and made it go off in his face. That really annoyed him. He pushed my arm away and sat up on the edge of the bed.
One Sunday morning over breakfast I told him I was going to write a letter to Per and explain everything. He kept shaking his head.
‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ he said.
‘Why not? It’s not that bad, surely?’ I said. I touched his neck beneath his ear, his skin was so delicate there. I thought about the word jawline. He always smelled so nice after he’d slept.
‘It’s worse, it makes me feel ill just thinking about it,’ he said, and slapped his hand down on the table. His voice was strangled, emotion welled in his throat. But it was me who started to cry, his hand gave me a fright, it came down right next to mine.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said. We leaned our heads together. We talked about what we could do. There had to be something. I said we needed to get out together, if only for a little walk down the street.
‘You’re right,’ he said, and a bit later we got dressed. It took us ages, the weather was changeable and he couldn’t decide whether to wear shorts or long trousers. I made myself up in front of the balcony door, pink lipstick and a bit of mascara.
‘Should I take some money with us?’ he said.
‘What for?’ I said at first, but then the next minute:
‘You could do, I suppose. We might want something.’
‘I don’t think I will,’ he said.
‘Don’t then,’ I said.
We went downstairs and out through the yard. The little girls were playing with a watering can. I smiled at them.
‘What great watering,’ I said, and they looked up at us and smiled back, one of the
m lifted the watering can up in front of her.
Out on the street we stood for a bit, unable to decide, then went left towards the square. There weren’t many people out. A young guy came out of the baker’s with two big bags and disappeared round a corner. We didn’t speak, all we did was walk. After the station I took his hand, I even began to swing our arms, only he resisted. The wind was chilly, but the sun had come out. I dragged him over to a bench and we sat down. The sun shone in our faces, I closed my eyes. I could hear his breathing. We got up again and went round behind the square through the little lane. A fat woman stood outside a crooked house in her slippers, it was the woman who’d come to my rescue, only without her moped this time. She smiled at us.
‘Hello there.’
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Keeping warm all right?’
‘Just about. The wind’s a bit chilly,’ I said, and she nodded.
‘The autumn’s here now,’ she said as we walked by. I raised my hand in a wave behind my back and gave Lars a squeeze with the other. He hadn’t said anything, he didn’t until we got home, with rosy cheeks and fresh air in our hair. We took our jumpers off.
‘Who was that woman?’ he said.