‘You make a living out of writing about artists, Rie. Without Diana and Jan there’d be nothing for you to do, in case you’d forgotten.’
‘I can write about whatever I choose, Mikkel Vallin.’
‘You suck people’s blood, Rie. You’re a gnat.’
It was late afternoon and I was lounging around watching a film about Francis Bacon. He stared caustically into the camera and I was unprepared for what he said:
‘Everything escapes you.’
Diana was drawing and Ida-Marie was drinking tea.
‘Moritz will be here with the curators in half an hour,’ said Ida-Marie.
I had a shower and watched the water run off my skin. Everything escapes you. I had thought it was me who always fled.
‘What do curators eat?’ said Ida-Marie.
‘We’re going out with them for a bite afterwards,’ said Diana.
The three curators were visibly uncomfortable in the assessor’s role, and Lea completely avoided eye contact. To begin with, Moritz said a few words about why Ida-Marie’s and Diana’s art was so vital to our understanding of contemporary urban life, and then one of the curator women explained some of the ideas behind their big exhibition of women’s art, and it was impossible to listen. When eventually they went in to look at Ida-Marie’s work, Lea plucked up the courage and stepped up to Diana with her cheeks blushing.
‘I’d like to thank you, Diana.’
It was obvious she had rehearsed.
‘Peter told me all about your photo session together. I even think he relished it. You saved me from the biggest prat on earth, so I just want to say thanks!’
Later that evening, we had roast pigeon at Le Basilique. Lea got stuck in to the Rhône.
‘You’ve found your style, Diana.’
‘What is my style, Lea?’
‘There’s a congruity between your life and your art. I wish I could say the same for me!’
Lea laughed without reason.
‘But you’re a troublemaker, Diana Kiss!’
She pinched Diana’s cheek. ‘A bloody troublemaker, that’s what you are!’
‘I thought I was minding my own business,’ said Diana, and removed Lea’s hand.
‘You let my man fuck you!’
The others tried to keep a conversation going.
‘You documented his sperm dribbling out of your cunt. You’re a troublemaker, all right.’
‘Are you jealous?’
‘I’ve wished you into the depths of hell, Diana.’
‘You’ve no need to be jealous.’
‘You’re very full of yourself, aren’t you?’
‘Would you like me to get nasty?’ said Diana.
She squeezed my arm under the table.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ I said.
Diana had cycled to Buresø when Clara phoned the studio and invited us for dinner. She was sure we would just love the doctor from her road, with his artist girlfriend she insisted I remembered from Jazzclub Montmartre, and as she went on I happened to notice some drawings sticking up out of the drawer in the big dresser. They looked like any other kids’ drawings: a house, a sun, a cloud, and they were dated on the back:
Nona, 7/12/2004. Nona, 6/9/2006.
Clara was still going on about the doctor’s artist girlfriend, something about a difficult childhood and the old song about parents wanting to give vent to their dreams, but staying put until there was no more left in the bottle.
‘People who grew up in happy homes are dead boring,’ she said.
‘I don’t know anyone who did,’ I said.
‘Nikolaj Krogh,’ said Clara.
‘Oh, that’s right, Nikolaj Krogh.’
‘He’s the most boring man in the world,’ she said.
I thought about closing the drawer, but left it open.
An ageing secretary in a blouse and pleated skirt led me through the long corridors of the publishing house, eventually stopping at a corner office.
Bernhard put his pen down immediately and rose to greet me, polite in the way no one ever is anymore. I’d sent him the first fifty pages of my manuscript and they lay in a clear folder on his desk.
‘The style is there, you’ve got a good grip on your story, and even in the bleakest passages the reader really feels for Søren T-shirt. But this second layer to the book, your reflections on coupledom, this rather surprised me.’
He jabbed at the folder.
‘You’re writing from on top of a bonfire. You’ve got something you’re burning to say.’
‘I want to abolish coupledom,’ I said.
‘The love story is touching, but it’s the other stuff that’s dynamite. In parts it almost reads like a manifesto. Goodbye, coupledom, thanks for nothing!’
The secretary came in with two Ramlösa mineral waters and a pair of limescaled drinking glasses.
‘My advice would be to develop that part of it as far as possible. This is an issue everyone can relate to, whether they’re in agreement or not. It’ll be like an arrow to people’s hearts, Mikkel. You could start a whole new paradigm.’
He reached down into a drawer and took out another folder.
‘Here’s a contract. Have a look and see what you think. My feeling is you’ve got a flow going. Could you deliver a completed manuscript by October the first? Does that sound realistic?’
‘Definitely.’
‘There’s something I need to know. The couple arguing about the cucumber salad, Helene and Tue Nissen, right?’
I nodded.
‘Have you got that cleared with Helene? Aren’t you the father of her child?’
He gazed out of the window for about fifteen seconds.
‘On second thoughts, just keep writing! We’ll address that as and when it comes up.’
The secretary knocked and behind her hovered an author with saggy Rioja cheeks and a suit jacket that reeked of smoke. Bernhard shook my hand.
‘We’ve launched a ship, Mikkel. Now let’s sail her out to sea.’
And with that he bid the next in line welcome with an enthusiasm that seemed genuine.
Helene was sitting in the publishing house canteen with a cup of tea.
‘What did he say?’
‘He gave me a contract.’
‘Congratulations! And he’s going to do the edit himself? That’s encouraging, but then Søren T-shirt and Signe do make a really good story.’
It was a relatively large canteen and someone at some point had decided to purchase a hundred good-quality wooden chairs. I imagined the decisive meeting, catalogues on the table, two representatives from the dealers, cold cuts and sesame buns, coffee in Stelton pots and a little bowl of shortbread biscuits.
Helene had a salad, I opted for pâté with sour pickle and frisée lettuce.
‘Whatever happened to your country gent look?’ she said.
I was in my new favourite trousers, narrow in the leg, with a large pastel check. We talked about Charlie’s growing vocabulary and the kindergarten, and then she got to the point.
‘I’m worried about you, Mikkel.’
‘I’ve never felt better.’
She tilted her head at me and had another sip of tea.
When she got back to her office, the secretary would have stuck two Post-its to the edge of her desk. A women’s magazine had called wanting any final adjustments to an author interview, and that freelance journalist woman with the dry hair who wanted to do a feature on some supposed trend among young female writers had called with a reminder about some free copies. Later, a photographer would be there to show her some graphically enhanced landscapes from Alaska and a series of black-and-white portraits of well-known people in the arts. She would cancel a spinning session too late and sit on the toilet for twenty minutes with her heart pounding, and when she got back the secretary would have stuck another Post-it to her desk: the freelance woman again, now with exclamation marks. Later still, there would be rump steak on offer in Irma on Gammel Kongevej, and she would give it a miss b
ecause someone or other had said the gastric system took weeks to break down beef. She would go to the vegetable section and stare blankly at leeks and spring cabbage, and end up grabbing a pack of chicken breasts without knowing what on earth to do with them.
Helene poured the last of the tea from the pot.
‘It all seems so desperate, this playing the free bohemian. What’s it all about, Mikkel?’
I didn’t feel provoked in the slightest.
‘I’m just trying in my own little way to avoid all the tedious rules and patterns. Isn’t that okay?’
‘You drink too much, Mikkel, you have done for years. Now you’ve found yourself a situation that makes it legitimate.’
‘I drink less now than when we were together.’
It sounded good, but it was a lie.
‘Are you saying it was me and my tedious rules that forced you to consume a whole bottle of white wine every night? Was it me who made you sit outside for hours on end, staring into space and going on about blackbirds, Mikkel?’
‘I never said that, but living like that wasn’t good for us, Helene. We were utilising about a tenth of our potential, at best.’
‘Isn’t one of the definitions of growing up that for a time you think less about your own happiness than that of others?’ she said.
‘Children are no happier for their parents discussing the rendering of outside walls.’
‘Oh, come on, Mikkel. Now you’re being mean.’
‘I’m sorry if I sound harsh, but the truth is you and Tue argue about cucumber salad.’
She sighed through her nose.
‘Our Tuesday-night dinners are an attempt to bring some kind of unity into Charlie’s life, Mikkel. Why should I be afraid of not living up to your new ideals? Am I to be monitored in my own home?’
She raised her voice, and the author in the smoky jacket looked nosily across. It wasn’t the first time she had spoken to me like this.
‘You’ve got me snarling at you now,’ she said. We both laughed.
‘You’re in love, Mikkel, but it’s summer and she’s young and beautiful.’
‘And autumn will come around soon, is that it?’
‘It generally tends to,’ she said.
‘It won’t this year.’
We were due at Clara’s for dinner at seven and I wasn’t in the slightest bit worried. God knows, she had always been my most perceptive critic, but at the age of forty-two I had become immune to her judgement.
I didn’t give a shit what she would make of Diana.
That said, Clara is not just anyone. Halfway through high school her family moved to Provence and when she came back a few years later, she was a fully fledged woman, more sophisticated than all of us. She was the epitome of upper-middle-class chic.
No one could do the Bodum cafetière like her.
The sun reflected in the cobbles, and the cluster of homeless men outside the hostel stood patting their dogs. It was half past six and no one had the energy to argue about anything. Rounds were bought and people sat on the steps with their legs tingling. It was the first evening of summer, and tonight everyone was beautiful.
Up on Jan’s rooftop they were sniffing poppers and dancing to ‘You Spin Me Round’ by Dead or Alive. I made eye contact with a bony Swiss performance artist in an army jumpsuit. Though I matched her in my short-sleeved navy surplus shirt, she sussed straight away that I’d never been keen on either Front 242 or The Young Gods, but I did know the entire fretless bass solo from ‘Brother to Brother’ by heart. Diana danced with a Brooklyn DJ with a bowl cut and heavily kohled, beautiful eyes. Otherwise it was all dinner jackets and patent leather shoes.
‘My drawings have been sent to Vietnam!’
She threw her arms around my neck, and to avoid stealing any of her thunder I refrained from telling her about my publishing contract and sent her back to dance some more.
Lisa dangled about with a spliff and a Kir Royale and was generally out of time. As far as I could gather from her pretentious incoherence, they were warming up for a big night at Jolene’s.
‘He’s not my type,’ she slurred.
‘Who isn’t?’
Her lights were on, but there was no one in.
‘He’s too perfect.’
‘God, you mean?’
‘Do you realise how gorgeous Nikolaj Krogh smells?’
She did a little jump like a girl with a skipping rope and began to shout something into my ear. I felt the spray of her spit on my earlobe, but heard only Tom Tom Club, and when I looked at her again her face was a void of despair. I patted her shoulder like you’re supposed to, and she stepped back and smiled.
‘We’ll party all night!’
She grabbed my hand and swayed like a housewife on the Chianti, only for tears to well up again. Rather appropriately, she chose the twelve-inch version of ‘Fade to Grey’ as the backing track for her final breakdown. Jan took her on to his lap.
‘Why don’t you stay here?’ he said to me. ‘It won’t be Diana’s scene there. Let them keep their Steely Dan for themselves.’
Reluctantly, I went to drag Diana out of the seething international scenario into which she’d mingled, preparing to have to coax her in the direction of one involving feta cheese, Arne Jacobsen chairs and French flea-market items, but all she did was smile sweetly. Maybe she found the prospect of a dinner party for couples in the fashionable terraced dwellings of the Kartoffelrækkerne exotic.
‘We’re taking some poppers with us, aren’t we?’ she said.
We stopped for an absinthe at Krut’s, then ambled along, flanked by the chestnut trees.
Diana looked down the rows of houses and I got the urge to tell her stories from my past. How on nights like this when I was a child, I would have been zigzagging my bike through the chewing-gum stains. The men wore grandad shirts back then, and the girls never said hello. I had a colour for each of the ten streets. Jens Juelsgade was still red-brown, and Eckersberggade a stand-offish blue. There was always a light on in the frosted window at the rear of the baker’s shop when we cycled home from the Montmartre club, and two bottles of Tuborg would get you a huge bag of rolls and pastries. The prostitutes on Lille Farimagsgade wore negligés and tipped the grocer’s delivery boy handsomely, unlike the widows in the spacious apartments of Malmøgade.
Østre Anlæg was the end of the world with all its forbidding hiding places and the bench by the football field where student types and dropouts smoked Afghan black.
Diana’s eyes glistened. I noticed her eyeliner was smudged. We kissed madly.
Clara was immediately self-effacing. She’d had no idea Diana was that beautiful and what an elegant dinner jacket, and all she could muster was this old black thing from Filippa K, and how interesting about Diana’s art, and do forgive me for not being in the know, I just file along with everyone else at Louisiana, and I only ever get to the meat-packing district when we need to buy in bulk at the cash-and-carry, there never seems to be time for the galleries there. She stopped us in the hall.
‘We’re having leg of lamb and it’s giving goose pimples. Joke, ha ha!’
Diana had no idea what she was on about, which was just as well.
Kreuzmann was at the centre of things, as always. Champagne in hand, spotless white shirt and a silk polka-dot cravat.
‘Here they come, Bonnie and Clyde!’ His face was oddly stiff, his eyes glazed.
The doctor’s name was Mosbeck. He was in his mid-fifties and made an effort to seem friendly. His hair was straight and swept back, and he was barrel-chested in an old-fashioned sort of way. His eyes registered everything. He was wearing a pale blue shirt and shoes that were scuffed and worn-looking. His artist girlfriend, Kathrine, had no hairstyle to speak of, just dark hair, and her threadbare denim jacket looked like it had been grown on her. I knew her type: Café Wilder, too much hash in the eighties, automatically left-wing, collector of seashells, cat lover, careless with her bikini line and just about able to pull off a kids�
�� song with an easy G-chord.
Erik Brinch played the host, and when he realised I’d rather have a beer than champagne he drew me out into the hall.
‘I’ve got to tell you this, Vallin.’
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure we were on our own.
‘You know how worked up Clara gets when she’s putting on a dinner, don’t you? So what do you think I do while she’s standing there julienning the fennel? I come up behind her, pull her knickers down and stick the cocky gentleman up her Fanny Adams. Can you imagine the state she’s in? The neighbours! It’ll never be ready on time! But then imagine how horny she gets not being able to do a thing about it. No escape! Do you know the feeling, being so far up inside a woman it feels like you’re conquering new land?’
Clara called everyone to the table.
‘Screaming and moaning, she was. Must have had five orgasms in the space of fifteen minutes. Fennel and pussy juice all over the place.’ He tossed his head back and laughed, allowing me a view into his gullet.
The door opened and Clara came out.
‘What are you two standing here talking about?’
‘I think you know perfectly well, darling!’
She glanced at me and blushed.
‘Dinner’s ready. It’s on the table.’
I was put next to Kathrine. She told me frankly that the art boom had left her and the other members of the artists’ collective Pust behind.
‘The times aren’t exactly crying out for non-figurative painting,’ she said.
The last two months she’d spent all her energy selecting and photographing paintings for her new website.
‘Can you see the idea?’ she said. ‘In a month the site will be up and then everyone will be able to see all the paintings they don’t want to buy.’
Clara was carving the lamb when Mosbeck raised his voice so that all conversation around the table stopped.
‘Are you happy at Galleri Moritz, Diana?’
‘Kaspar Moritz is sweet,’ she said.
‘No faulting his connections, am I right?’
Diana nodded and asked him what he was getting at.
‘Have you heard of De Unge Vilde?’ he went on.
‘She’s twenty-seven,’ said Clara.
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