Hygge and Kisses

by Clara Christensen

  ‘Is that why you had your arm round her shoulder?’ Her gaze was steady, and Ben gave a slight double-take.

  ‘If you’re referring to Dan’s photo, it’s not what it looked like,’ he said in a tight, buttoned-up voice. Bo tilted her head to one side.

  ‘Really? What was it then?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything,’ Ben said, with a look that, through Bo’s increasingly blurred vision, seemed almost pleading. ‘It was our team night out, I was celebrating my new job, she was celebrating hers. It was just . . . high spirits. I was pissed . . . and Charlotte was just – there. That’s all.’

  ‘Well, of course, if she was just there, that makes it okay . . .’ Bo trailed off and sat back in her chair, looking Ben in the eye as she took another defiant gulp of wine. Ben’s face was set hard: she had never seen him look so uncomfortable. Even though she had a growing sense that she would regret what she was doing in the morning, for the moment at least, she was enjoying herself. It felt good to behave recklessly, for once, to say what she was really thinking without worrying about the consequences. When the waiter reappeared to clear their plates and hand them each a dessert menu, she smiled warmly and leaned back against her padded dining chair to peruse the menu studiously.

  ‘Oh look, Ben,’ she exclaimed. ‘There’s a chocolate brownie on here. I know how much you like them.’ She flashed a saccharine smile. Ben held her gaze for a moment then glanced at his watch.

  ‘I think maybe we should just get the bill,’ he said sulkily.

  Bo sat in the back seat of the taxi Ben had called for her, aware that the motion and hum of the engine were at the same time lulling her to sleep and making her feel slightly nauseous. The feeling of triumph she had enjoyed at the table was beginning to seep away, to be replaced by the clammy fear that she had almost certainly just made a fool of herself. She tried to recall the details of their conversation – had he conclusively denied that anything was going on with Charlotte? Infuriatingly, she couldn’t remember, and it now seemed like a major oversight on her part that she had not pressed him for a definitive answer one way or the other.

  She drifted into a light doze and was woken only when the driver pulled up outside her house. She stumbled out of the taxi and staggered down the short flight of stone steps to the flat’s front door, where it took several attempts to get her key into the lock.

  ‘Hi Kirst,’ she called, when she had finally gained access. ‘Just wait till you hear about my epically shit night with Ben.’ She was met with silence, although the lights were on. ‘Kirst?’ Bo repeated, removing her coat and thrusting it in the general direction of the row of hooks on the wall, oblivious to the fact that she missed and her coat had landed in a heap on the floor. She walked down the hallway and pushed open the living-room door, to find Kirsten curled up on the sofa, red-eyed and sniffing.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Bo gasped, ‘What’s happened?’ She felt instantly sober and sat down beside her friend. Kirsten’s eyes were puffy and her face was blotchy.

  ‘It’s my grandfather,’ Kirsten croaked, wiping at her eyes with a tissue. ‘He’s been rushed to hospital. They think he might have had a stroke.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Bo murmured compassionately, stroking Kirsten’s shoulder.

  ‘He’s in intensive care,’ Kirsten went on, her eyes filling with fresh tears.

  ‘Are you going back to your Mum and Dad’s?’ Bo asked gently.

  Kirsten nodded. ‘Tomorrow.’ She blew her nose noisily into a tissue while Bo sat beside her in silence, allowing the full implication of Kirsten’s news to sink in. The same thought seemed to occur to Kirsten, and she looked at Bo through red-rimmed eyes. ‘It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to come to Denmark after all.’

  Part Two

  Skagen

  Chapter 10

  Monday morning found Bo drinking coffee at the edge of a cavernous departure lounge in Gatwick airport. The place seemed designed to be as unpleasant an environment as possible, with harsh neon strip lights above rows of uncomfortable metal seats surrounded by shops and fast food outlets. With two hours still to wait until her flight, she had already made two circuits of the tax-free shop, popped into Boots, and picked up an armful of magazines from WHSmith. Now, at a loss for something to do, she had sought out the relative comfort of a Costa Coffee.

  Bo sipped her cappuccino and took a bite of limp croissant, allowing her eyes to wander around the busy lounge on the other side of the red rope dividers. It had the frenetic air characteristic of airport terminals, full of passengers rushing to departure gates or staring blankly at the boarding gate screens, all wearing looks of thinly veiled impatience to be anywhere other than in this soulless, limbo-like space.

  Wiping the grease from her fingers with a paper napkin, Bo sighed, then pushed back her sleeve to look at her watch. It was just gone nine-thirty, and her mind drifted automatically to the Aspect office. She pictured her former colleagues going about the usual Monday morning routine: the exchange of pleasantries about their weekends, the first tea-round of the working week, the catch-up meetings and checking of emails.

  Of course, this was also Ben’s first day as Aspect’s newly appointed Accounts Director. Bo imagined him striding from the lift and into the office, enjoying the sheen of glamour and power afforded by his promotion. Frances, the matronly PA who managed the directors’ diaries, would pop her head around the door of his glass-walled office to offer him a hot drink, and Ben would smile winningly and ask for tea, relishing the fact that he had reached the professional milestone of having someone else make drinks for him. Bo shuddered and tried to be thankful that redundancy had, at least, spared her the ordeal of having to witness his triumphant inauguration in the flesh.

  Bo was still no closer to knowing what, if anything, was going on between Ben and Charlotte. She had taken his word for it that nothing had happened in Milton Keynes, but now there was the photo on Facebook too . . . Could the arm draped around Charlotte’s shoulder really be excused by drunken high spirits? She would rather know for certain one way or the other whether anything had happened – even if the truth was hurtful – than have to deal with this interminable uncertainty. Instead, she was left doubting her own judgement. To doubt Ben’s protestations of innocence might be a sign of her paranoia and neediness, but to believe them might show her to be gullibly naïve.

  She stared at her phone, debating whether to send Ben a message. But to say what? To apologise for the way she had behaved in the restaurant? To ask how his first day in the new job was going? To ask him outright whether he fancied Charlotte? She sighed, deciding that the best course of action was probably to do nothing. She had arranged this holiday, in part, to put some distance between herself and Ben, and to give herself space to work out how she felt about him. Texting him from the airport would mean she had fallen at the first hurdle. Besides, if curiosity got the better of her, she would be able to find out what Ben was up to via social media. And that, she reasoned, could be done just as easily from Denmark as it could from London.

  Determined to drive thoughts of Ben from her mind, she tried to focus on the trip that lay ahead. In truth, she was feeling more apprehensive than excited. She had very nearly lost her nerve about the whole enterprise over the weekend. When Kirsten had set off for Godalming first thing on Sunday, pale-faced and anxious, she had no idea how serious her grandfather’s condition was. Bo had kept her own anxieties to herself, knowing it would be crassly insensitive to bring up the subject of their trip at such a moment of crisis. She spent the rest of the day alone in the flat waiting to hear from Kirsten, unsure whether their plans were about to fall through.

  When Kirsten finally called on Sunday night, Bo could immediately hear the relief in her friend’s voice. Her grandfather had suffered a stroke, Kirsten said, but a mild one. The hospital wanted to keep him in for observation, but the doctors were hopeful he would make a good recovery.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ Bo murmured, thinking not just about Kirsten’s
grandfather, but also (a touch selfishly, she knew) about their holiday plans.

  ‘Dad wants me to stay here until Grandad’s been discharged, though.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Bo replied, trying to hide her disappointment behind an artificially upbeat tone.

  ‘It should only be a day or so till he’s got the all-clear,’ Kirsten added. ‘There’s no point both of us changing our flights. Why don’t you go tomorrow as planned and I’ll join you in a couple of days?’

  Bo exhaled slowly, feeling her nerve wavering. When Bo had booked their flights, she had blithely assumed that Kirsten would take responsibility for all the niggly, anxiety-provoking aspects of travelling abroad: speaking the language, knowing the route, being familiar with the house. Instead, she faced the prospect of travelling to the remote reaches of a strange country on her own.

  ‘The house won’t be empty when you arrive,’ Kirsten urged, as if sensing her friend’s discomfort. ‘Mum says one of her ex-students is already there.’

  ‘Oh, right. Anyone you know?’ Bo enquired.

  ‘Someone called Florence. An artist. I’ve never met her. But she’s stayed in the house before, so she’ll know how everything works.’

  To Bo, the thought of an artist named Florence conjured up an image of a woman in late middle age, a willowy, ex-hippy-type, fond of batik-print dresses. Bo couldn’t imagine that they would have much common ground. If she and Florence didn’t get on, then what exactly would she do to fill her time until Kirsten arrived, in a seaside town in the depths of a cold, dark, Scandinavian winter? She pictured awkward silences at the dinner table, desperately trying to think of something intelligent to say about art, while Florence looked on haughtily.

  But even if sharing the house with a stranger were awkward for a day or so, what was the alternative? To cancel her flight, pay for a replacement plane ticket and sit in the empty flat for another day, checking job sites and obsessing about what may or may not be going on between Ben and Charlotte? Hardly an appetising prospect. She took a deep breath and told herself (in one of Ben’s favourite phrases), to man-up.

  ‘Okay, that sounds like a good plan,’ she had told Kirsten.

  ‘Great,’ Kirsten said happily. ‘Anyway I’d better go, we’re about to eat. Have a good trip, and I’ll keep you updated.’

  Bo leaned back in the faded coffee-shop armchair, feeling apprehensive. This was not going to be the relaxing holiday with her best friend that she had planned, at least not for the first day or two. She drained the dregs of her coffee, wiped a residue of milky froth from her lip, and checked her watch again. It was nine-forty-five. On a whim, she picked up her phone, found the contact details for one of the recruitment agencies, and dialled the number. She drummed her fingers on the table-top, listening to the ring-tone.

  ‘B&D Employment Services. How may I help you?’ demanded a shrill voice on the line.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ Bo said with forced brightness. ‘This is Bo Hazlehurst. I sent you my CV last week and I was just wondering—’

  ‘Please hold,’ the voice cut her off mid-sentence. A blast of the Four Seasons followed, then – ‘Can I take your name please?’

  ‘Bo Hazlehurst,’ repeated Bo, trying to keep exasperation out of her voice. After several more minutes of Vivaldi, which Bo quickly discovered was the first eight bars only, played on an infuriating loop, she was eventually put through to a girl who sounded no more than eighteen but introduced herself as a consultant. The girl chirpily informed Bo that, yes, she had received Bo’s email and CV, but there was nothing suited to Bo’s experience at the moment. But she would definitely be in touch as soon as the situation changed.

  ‘Okay, thank you, I’d appreciate that,’ Bo said through a clenched jaw.

  The interminable preamble to the flight dragged on with a tense wait in front of the departures screen for her gate number. Eventually, feeling as if she was already exhausted and ready for bed, Bo stood in line with her passport and boarding pass, queuing for her flight to Aalborg in the endless grey corridor that housed the departure gates.

  Scanning the faces in the queue, she guessed that the majority of her fellow travellers were Danish. There was a noticeable amount of tall blondes, with just the occasional Brit among them, recognisable by being stockier, mousier, and carrying English newspapers. She noticed with mild alarm that the Danes were also, without exception, dressed in high tech super-warm outer layers or goose-down jackets. Bo glanced at her own woollen coat with slight misgiving, wondering if she should have paid greater heed to Kirsten’s warnings about the severity of the Danish weather.

  On board the aircraft, she edged her way patiently along the aisle, stowed her wheeled suitcase in the overhead cabin, then clambered into the cramped, rigid seat. She wondered how long it would be until the Viking-esque cabin crew came around with the drinks trolley, before remembering that, after the humiliation of Saturday night, she had resolved to drink in moderation for the duration of the trip. She pulled a plastic bottle of water out of her handbag and took a sip, staring out of the aircraft’s tiny window at the baggage handlers loading suitcases into the hold, and trying not to think about how much she longed for a vodka and tonic to steady her pre-flight nerves.

  *

  Three hours later, Bo stood shivering on the frosty runway of Aalborg airport, pulling her knitted bobble hat down over her ears against the freezing air. She had never felt cold like this before. Her lungs hurt with every breath, her cheeks felt raw, and the wind seemed to blow straight through her ineffectual coat. It was barely three o’clock but dusk was already falling. She grabbed her wheeled suitcase and followed the other passengers across the glistening tarmac to the tiny airport up ahead, which consisted of a small, single-storey building, illuminated in the lowering darkness.

  Inside, she was struck first by the blissful warmth, and then by the atmosphere of calm and comfort. This was nothing like any airport she had been to in Britain: it felt almost cosy, with polished wooden floors and tasteful lighting. Everywhere exuded good design, from the rows of leather-backed seats to the sleekly aerodynamic luggage trolleys. The Danes all seemed to possess an air of serenity that was nothing like the fraught tension that emanated from the passengers at Gatwick. They seemed less hurried, less stressed – relaxed, even. They were also, almost without exception, unnervingly tall. Bo felt acutely conscious of her 5’5” frame, being towered over by both men and women and even, she noticed with alarm, some of the children.

  A shuttle bus took her from the airport to the train station, where her connecting train to Skagen (sleek and silver on the outside, comfortable and spacious on the inside) was waiting at the platform. Inside, the carriage was already filling up with passengers sliding their cases onto the luggage racks and removing their bulky coats. As Bo made her way along the carpeted aisle in search of a seat, her wheeled case brushed against a laptop which had been placed precariously on a table, whilst its owner shoved his jacket onto the overhead rails.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Bo exclaimed, reaching down to steady the laptop before it toppled onto the floor. The owner of the laptop, a young intense-looking man in a beanie hat, turned and scowled at her.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said gruffly, in an English accent, sliding the laptop away from the edge of the table.

  ‘Sorry,’ Bo repeated.

  Mildly annoyed with herself for apologising when, surely, it was not her fault that the laptop had been protruding from the table, Bo continued down the carriage and found her seat. At exactly its scheduled departure time, the train pulled away and Bo leaned back to watch the dusky scrubland of Northern Jutland flash past the window.

  About half an hour into the journey, Bo realised that she had forgotten to switch on her phone after landing. It immediately began to beep with text messages from her mother, of increasing urgency: Have you landed? Are you there yet? Bo, PLEASE text me.

  Flight was fine, on train now. Nearly there, she tapped out.

  Almost instantly, a reply app
eared: Great. I’ll call you later.

  She dozed off with her head against the glass and when she woke it was dark outside and horizontal streaks of rainwater flecked the windows. She peered at her reflection in the black glass, wiping away the smudges of mascara under her eyes with her fingertips. The train had made several stops while she had slept, and the carriage was almost empty. By the time the train began to slow down for its approach into the terminus at Skagen, there were only three other passengers remaining: a benign-looking elderly couple and the man in the beanie, who was typing on his laptop with a look of fierce concentration. Seeing the elderly couple gather their things, she did likewise, putting on her coat and pulling her hat down over her ears in anticipation of the freezing temperature she knew awaited her outside.

  Sure enough, the air was even colder and thinner here than it had been at the airport, the northerly wind blowing in from the sea was biting, and fat drops of icy rain quickly soaked through her woolly gloves and hat. She ran across the forecourt in front of the station, a pretty building with balconies and a yellow-plastered façade, and climbed gratefully into a taxi. She showed the driver the summerhouse address, pulled off her damp hat, then sat back and listened to the tinny, slightly incongruous sound of Bruno Mars singing Uptown Funk on the radio, as the taxi rolled through the dark, cobbled streets.

  Almost eight hours after setting off from her flat, Bo finally arrived at the summerhouse. Lights flickered invitingly behind its lowered blinds and its yellow walls and steeply pitched red roof made Bo think of fairytale cottages and gingerbread houses. The neat front lawn was enclosed by a white picket fence and boasted its own wooden flagpole, the red and white Danish flag snapping in the wind.

  Bo rang the doorbell. She heard movement behind the door but a noise behind her made her turn around. Another taxi had pulled into the space just vacated by hers, and the driver had got out and was removing a suitcase from the boot.