Hygge and Kisses

by Clara Christensen

  ‘You okay, Bo?’ Hayley sounded concerned. Bo could feel a flush beginning to spread from her neck to her cheeks.

  ‘I think I might have had too many of these,’ Bo said, swinging her empty beer bottle by the neck. Chloe snorted.

  ‘Easily done, babe, easily done,’ she said, understandingly. ‘What you need is a Maccy D’s on your way home, to line your stomach,’ she advised.

  ‘Actually, I think I’d better make a move, I’m not feeling very well.’ Hayley and Chloe exchanged a worried look but Bo was resolute. Her face was burning and she had an urgent need to escape the office as quickly as possible, to be away from the pity and concern of her soon-to-be-ex colleagues, to digest in privacy the revelation that had just been sprung on her.

  She sensed heads turning as she pulled on her coat and gathered her things. She knew it was bad form to pull a disappearing act at her own leaving do, but she couldn’t face doing a tour of farewell hugs, not least because to do so, she would have to acknowledge Ben and Charlotte. Instead, she bade an apologetic goodbye to Hayley and Chloe, tucked her bunch of flowers under her elbow and slipped out the office.

  Waiting for the lift doors to close, she caught sight of Ben beside the water cooler. He looked stunned. She held his gaze as the metal doors slid closed, then as the lift whirred into motion she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the tears that she had been holding back all week, tears of frustration, anger and humiliation all rolled into one.

  ‘Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?’ Ben asked, as the lift doors opened on the ground floor. He was out of breath and beads of sweat had formed on his brow.

  ‘I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation with Charlotte,’ she said snappishly, stepping past him and striding through the foyer towards the entrance doors. He jogged a few paces to catch up with her, and she felt a twinge of gratification that Ben was still panting from the exertion of racing down four flights of stairs. ‘G’night, Bill,’ she said sweetly to the grey-haired security guard perched on a stool behind the bank of monitors. He nodded amiably, and raised one arm from his bulging belly in a waving gesture. At the office’s heavy glass and metal doors she fumbled with her flowers and bag, but Ben reached her side just in time to pull the door open for her. ‘Thanks,’ she mumbled begrudgingly.

  Outside, a light drizzle was falling and the night air was chilly, but the street had the unmistakable buzz of a Friday night in the West End. Hoots of laughter and the clink of glasses drifted over from a pub further along the street, where a crowd of suited workers had gathered on the pavement to smoke cigarettes in the warm glow of a paraffin heater. Bo pulled the zip of her coat up to her chin and started walking.

  ‘What was that supposed to mean?’ Ben asked, stepping in front of Bo on the pavement in order to block her path. He was wearing his open-necked shirt, the sleeves still rolled up, and when he raised his hand to push his hair out of his eyes, Bo noticed goose-bumps on his forearm.

  ‘It means, wouldn’t you rather be back inside with Charlotte?’ she repeated in a slow, deliberate voice, as if talking to a small child.

  ‘With Charlotte?’ he echoed incredulously. His surprise appeared genuine and she felt a wobble of uncertainty – was it possible Hayley had made a mistake? But she decided that, having gone this far, she might as well continue.

  ‘The whole office knows what happened in Milton Keynes,’ she persisted, determined not to betray her doubt. Ben looked gobsmacked. He gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Nothing happened in Milton Keynes.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard,’ hissed Bo. A chorus of blokeish laughter heralded the appearance of a group of leery young men coming along the pavement towards them.

  ‘Mind out,’ Ben muttered, taking Bo by the arm and leading her into the relative shelter of a recessed doorway further along the street. ‘Look,’ he said, fixing her with an intent stare, ‘I don’t know who’s been gossiping, or what you’ve heard, but I can guarantee it’s bullshit.’ His gaze was steady, and Bo felt her nerve wavering once more.

  ‘So you didn’t try it on with Charlotte, while you were in Milton Keynes?’ she asked, figuring there was nothing to lose by being blunt.

  ‘With Charlotte? Are you kidding?’ he replied. Then he laughed, but there seemed to be genuine affection in his eyes. ‘Is that why you’ve been ignoring me all week?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Bo admitted. ‘That was because you cancelled our trip to Pizza Express,’ she said morosely. Ben’s eyes creased in amusement and Bo found herself trying to stifle a smile at how childish her words had sounded. ‘I only heard about Charlotte just now,’ she added meekly.

  ‘Let me, guess. Hayley?’ he asked.

  She nodded, feeling a pang of guilt for her disloyalty to her former colleague. Her head was foggy from the beers she had downed, and she was aware that the emotion of the week was beginning to catch up with her. She felt drained, confused, and on the verge of tears.

  Ben lifted a hand to stroke a stray strand of hair away from her face. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Especially not from some shit-stirring assistant with nothing better to do than spread rumours.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Charlotte was there, too?’ Bo asked, as if grasping for evidence that suggested he had something to hide.

  ‘Why would I mention it?’ he replied, baffled. He placed his fingertips beneath her chin and tilted her face up so that he could look her in the eye. ‘It was me, Matt and Charlotte. We spent the day slogging our guts out for an arsey client, then went back to a third-rate hotel, had a couple of drinks in the bar, then went to bed. Separately.’ His face softened. ‘Besides,’ he said, a tender smile playing around his lips, ‘why would I make a move on Charlotte? She’s got nothing on you.’

  Bo felt the warmth of Ben’s hand on her face, and part of her wanted nothing more than to lean into his arms in the damp doorway and let him comfort her. She longed to believe him, but from somewhere in the recesses of her mind a voice urged caution, reminding her that she was tired, a little drunk, and emotionally overwrought. Even if Ben was telling the truth about Charlotte, did that excuse the way he had treated her over the past week?

  ‘Shall we go and get something to eat?’ Ben asked softly. ‘Pizza, perhaps?’ He gave a boyish smile, but his face looked orange in the neon glow of a nearby street lamp.

  ‘Actually, I think I might just head home,’ she said after a moment’s silence. ‘It’s been a long week. I think I need an early night.’ She dropped her head and adjusted the bunch of flowers under her arm. He took a step back, and there was no mistaking his hurt feelings.

  ‘Okay, if you’re sure,’ he said matter-of-factly, crossing his arms in front of his body to rub them. ‘It’s freezing out here,’ he added, with a look which brought to mind a schoolboy waiting to be dismissed at the end of a lesson.

  ‘You’d better get back inside, you’ll catch pneumonia if you stay out here any longer,’ she said, taking the hint. Ben smiled and leaned forward to give her a kiss. His lips felt cold and dry. Then he turned and dashed back along the pavement towards the office, bounded up the stone steps and disappeared inside. Bo watched until the door had swung shut behind him, then she pulled her handbag more securely onto her shoulder, stepped out from the doorway, and began to make her way slowly towards the tube.

  Chapter 7

  Bo arrived home to find the flat unlit and empty. Clutching a boxed pizza she had picked up at the local takeaway, she grabbed a bottle of wine and a glass from the kitchen and went through to the living room. There, she collapsed onto the sofa, poured herself a large glass, and opened the cardboard lid. The pizza was oily and unappetising but, with the Shiraz to wash it down, Bo found the meal was palatable enough. Soon a pleasing numbness started to spread through her, softening the painful recollections of the evening’s events and by the time the pizza was finished and the bottle was almost empty, Bo had convinced herself that she didn’t care whether Ben had made a pass at Charlotte in
Milton Keynes.

  When Kirsten let herself into the flat at just gone midnight, she found Bo passed out on the sofa, the empty wine bottle by her feet and the grease-stained pizza box still open on her lap.

  ‘Been partying by yourself, I see,’ Kirsten teased, shaking Bo by the shoulder. Bo groggily pushed herself upright.

  ‘’S’my leaving do,’ she slurred, rubbing her eyes, ‘I’ll do what I like.’

  ‘Did you speak to Ben?’ Kirsten asked, helping to lever Bo off the sofa and onto her feet. Bo’s mouth twisted.

  ‘I did. Says izn’t true. But ’e’s probly with Charlotte now. Eating pizza.’ Bo emitted a hysterical giggle.

  ‘What isn’t true? Who’s Charlotte?’ Kirsten asked, confused.

  ‘She’z in Milton Keynes too, but’s got nothing on me, ’pparently.’ Bo let go of Kirsten’s arm momentarily to reach for her phone on the coffee table, almost losing her balance and falling back onto the sofa in the process. Kirsten deftly grabbed her by the elbow, pulled her upright once more, and began to lead her slowly towards her bedroom.

  ‘Tell me about it in the morning,’ Kirsten said soothingly. ‘I think you need to get to bed.’

  ‘Fucking Milton Keynes,’ Bo muttered as she shuffled compliantly down the hallway.

  Kirsten deposited Bo on her bed and fetched her a glass of water and a packet of ibuprofen.

  ‘Thanks, Kirst,’ Bo mumbled, shoving a box of tissues onto the floor in order to make room on the bedside table for her glass.

  ‘Night night,’ Kirsten said, closing the bedroom door softly behind her.

  Bo remained slumped on the edge of her bed, watching the furniture in the room swim back and forth in front of her eyes, before allowing her body to topple sideways. With a groan, she swung her legs up onto the mattress and within seconds she sank into the blissful oblivion of sleep.

  The next morning, she woke with a pounding head, stale mouth and contact lenses that felt welded to her eyes. She moaned with discomfort, as the realisation sank in that she was still dressed in yesterday’s work clothes. She gingerly groped at the bedside table for the glass of water and propped herself up on her elbow to take several long gulps and swallow two ibuprofen. The movement made her head spin and she dropped back onto her pillow and lay motionless for several minutes, shielding her eyes with her forearm. It was not until she picked up her phone and saw the notification message that she remembered she had promised to go to her parents’ house for lunch.

  A couple of hours later, Bo was sitting on a train bound for Buckinghamshire. She had not yet broken the news of her redundancy to her parents, telling herself that it would be better to tell them face to face, but now that the moment was approaching, she was beginning to regret not having laid the groundwork for her announcement. She slumped low in her seat and allowed the rocking motion of the train to soothe her throbbing head, and let her eyes wander across the vista of grotty estates and industrial buildings that was sliding by outside the scratched train window.

  Drinking alone was something she had never done before and it felt vaguely seedy and shameful; it was something she associated with lonely alcoholics rather than cosmopolitan twenty-somethings. She rested her forehead against the cold glass of the window and wondered whether her drinking habits were something else she ought to worry about, as further evidence of her quarter-life crisis.

  Against her will, she found her thoughts shifting to the reason for last night’s drinking: Hayley’s gossipy revelation about Milton Keynes, and Ben’s subsequent denial. Although, he had seemed genuinely affronted by the accusation, and his insistence that he, Charlotte and Matt had simply shared a few comradely drinks after a difficult day sounded plausible. Now that Bo had left Aspect, however, it would be virtually impossible for her to find out the truth. Any enquiry to her former colleagues about this particular piece of office gossip would give away her personal involvement.

  The train rattled on, and the urban vista of North London gradually gave way to the well-kept gardens and low-rise housing of outer suburbia, and eventually to the fields of green belt beyond the M25. Leaving the city behind, Bo tried to put thoughts of Ben and Charlotte out of her mind in order to prepare for the task ahead.

  *

  ‘Here she is.’ It was her father’s habitual greeting, and he didn’t deviate from tradition when he opened the wooden front door of their Tudor-style house. Clive Hazlehurst was a benevolent-looking fifty-something with greying hair and a physique that betrayed his penchant for a gentle round of golf followed by several more rounds of drinks at the club bar.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ Bo said, giving him an affectionate peck on the cheek. She took her coat off and removed her shoes, accustomed to her mother’s horror of finding dirty footprints on her beige carpets.

  ‘Your sister’s here,’ her father said, leading her down the hallway to the kitchen. ‘She’s brought the twins,’ he added, in a slightly strained tone.

  Following her father into the kitchen, Bo was met by the sight of her parents’ cat tearing towards her, its tail fluffed in alarm, hotly pursued by her shrieking niece and nephew. Bo stood aside to allow the whirlwind of rampaging toddlers and terrified cat safe passage into the hallway. Seconds later she heard a tumult of paws and feet as all three scrambled up the stairway to the bedrooms, where the cat could hide by vanishing underneath one of the beds.

  ‘Amelie! Freddy! Careful on the stairs!’ her sister Lauren called wearily, emerging from the kitchen in their wake, with a resigned, ‘here we go again’ expression.

  Lauren was older than Bo by two years, taller and with hair the same honey-blonde shade as Bo’s but without its tendency to curl (a cause of envy in Bo since childhood). The sisters had been close in their youth but their lives had diverged in adulthood, with Lauren giving up her job as an office manager to start a family in a leafy part of Berkshire near to her husband’s office in Reading.

  In some respects, Bo envied the financial and emotional stability of her sister’s lifestyle, but at times she felt that Lauren had somehow opted out by giving up her career to become a housewife and full-time mother. Bo sometimes found it difficult to disguise her irritation when Lauren talked about the challenge of finding a good builder for their next phase of home improvement, or the dilemma of whether she ought to buy the twins an iPad each or make them share. Bo knew it was disloyal, but she couldn’t help but feel that her sister had it easy. Although she had never said anything out loud, she sometimes suspected that Lauren knew that was how she felt, and that it had driven a wedge between them.

  Nevertheless, Bo felt a glimmer of relief that Lauren and the twins were present, if only to deflect some of the attention that might otherwise fall, exclusively, on Bo’s announcement.

  The kitchen smelled mouth-wateringly of roast beef, and pans of vegetables were steaming and bubbling on the Aga’s hotplates. ‘You’ll have a glass of Rioja, won’t you, Bo?’ Bo’s father asked, uncorking a bottle of red wine at the granite-topped kitchen island.

  ‘Maybe just one,’ Bo murmured, knowing that wine was the last thing she should be drinking after last night’s exploits, but also that it would undeniably help her cope with what was to come.

  The prospect of telling her parents about her redundancy was not one she relished. In truth, a part of Bo would have liked nothing more than to open up and admit to her parents that she had spent five years working in a sector that she had never really felt passionate about, doing a job that had ceased to challenge her a long time ago, but that now she had lost it she felt rejected and rudderless, as if she had just been cast out into open seas in a dinghy. But she knew that if she did so, the price would be to endure her parents’ alarm and anxiety that she was not coping with the stresses of living and working in London. She had resolved that she would rather put on a brave face and play down her own fears than have to endure that.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ her mother said, stepping away from the Aga to give Bo a hug. A cooking apron covered her loosely ta
ilored trousers and a silky blouse, in Bo’s opinion an unnecessarily formal ensemble for a family lunch at home, but then Bo’s mother had always instilled in her daughters the importance of making an effort. (Bow as fairly confident that her mother would rather lose a limb than be seen wearing jeans.)

  ‘Something smells good,’ Bo said appreciatively, her grumbling stomach reminding her that, other than coffee and Nurofen, she had consumed nothing all morning. Bo picked up the crystal wine glass which her father had placed in front of her and took a sip, appreciating, even in her hungover state, the wine’s rounded, full-bodied flavour.

  ‘Is Nick here?’ Bo asked, glancing across the open-plan kitchen to the dining table, which was meticulously laid for lunch, complete with folded linen napkins, side-plates, and a china tray bearing a selection of condiments in bowls, each one with its own tiny silver spoon. Nick was Lauren’s husband. He worked as something in insurance, and Bo had always found him on the pompous side of pleasant (‘thirty-four going on sixty-four’, was how she had once described him once to Ben), so she felt slightly relieved when her mother answered in the negative, explaining that Nick was playing golf in Newbury. At least, Bo thought gratefully, she wouldn’t have to endure her brother-in-law’s advice when she broke the news of her redundancy.

  Over lunch, the task of persuading the twins to remain seated at the table long enough to eat their meal, and to refrain from smearing food across the tablecloth and chairs, demanded everyone’s attention. Bo allowed her father to top up her wine glass which, combined with the deliciousness of her mother’s roast beef and the low winter sunshine streaming through the conservatory windows, induced a relaxed state, verging on sleepy. It was not until Bo was sitting on the Liberty-print sofa of her parents’ comfortable living room, cradling a cup of coffee on her lap, that she realised she could put off her task no longer. The children had been released into the garden to play on the ageing swing and slide set that dated from Bo’s own childhood, and Lauren had gone out to supervise them.