Hygge and Kisses

by Clara Christensen

  Bo smiled wanly and picked up her tea, feeling, if anything, even more downcast than she had before. The redundancy money was welcome, for sure, but it signified the definitive end of her association with Aspect, and there seemed something callously impersonal about the way five years of her life had been brought to a close with a tax slip and a financial pay-off.

  *

  Bo’s mood didn’t improve in the days that followed. Kirsten was back at work so Bo spent her days alone in the flat with little to do other than mull over what had happened in Skagen. The flat felt draughty and cramped compared to the summerhouse and she missed the elemental Danish landscape, the endless dunes, the vast skies and the turbulent sea. She even missed the sound of rain lashing against the windows.

  When she was not obsessing over what had happened with Emil, Bo was torturing herself about Ben. On both fronts, she found herself unable to achieve any clarity. Instead, a dense mass of confusion and guilt seemed to be lodged deep inside her, like an undigested meal. She had not replied to Ben’s text at the summerhouse, and there had been no attempt at contact on either side since her return to London. She supposed she ought to feel guilty about what had happened with Emil; she knew it made a hypocrite of her, when she had wrongly accused Ben of cheating. Yet part of her protested that it was not straightforward. The terms of their relationship had always been ambiguous. Did sleeping with Emil count as cheating, if she had never been sure whether Ben, definitively, considered them to be a couple?

  In the hope that baking might cheer her up, she decided to knock up a batch of brownies. As she whisked and folded, she realised that it was the hygge feeling she was trying to recapture, the sense of cosiness, camaraderie, and togetherness that had characterised her cooking sessions with the others in Skagen. But, alone in the poky kitchen in Holloway, it was impossible to muster any feeling of hygge contentment.

  Bo slid the tray of brownie mix into the oven and slammed the door shut, just as her phone started to vibrate with an incoming call. She grabbed the phone and, seeing the name of a recruitment agency displayed on her screen, set her face into a smile.

  ‘Hello?’ she answered.

  ‘Hi, Bo, this is Shelley from Marsh Recruitment, how are you?’ a voice chirped down the line, as if Bo were an old friend. In the background, Bo could hear the buzz of an office, phones ringing, disembodied voices, a distant shriek of laughter.

  ‘I’m fine thanks, Shelley, how are you?’ Bo replied, mirroring Shelley’s familiar tone, even though they had neither met nor spoken before.

  ‘Good thanks. Listen –’ the social niceties dispatched with, Shelley was getting down to business, ‘we’ve got a fantastic job just in, which I thought might suit you.’

  Bo felt an instinctive reluctance, but replied, ‘Oh, right,’ with artificial brightness.

  ‘Marketing exec, good package and prospects. For a really great company. Central London location, near Euston,’ Shelley enthused. ‘It’s in a different sector, though. How would you feel about working in food?’

  Chapter 18

  Bo sat on the tube train speeding her towards central London, on her way to her first job interview in over five years. She was wearing her smart grey trouser suit and a pair of high-heels, and had painstakingly blow-dried her hair so that no rogue curls could spoil her look of well-groomed professionalism. She had not worn heels for months, however, and by the time she had reached the platform at Holloway Road tube station, she could already feel the tell-tale throb of a blister on her left heel. Staring at her reflection in the carriage window opposite, she made a mental note to buy sticking plasters at the earliest opportunity, to avoid the embarrassment of turning up at the interview with a limp.

  She emerged from Euston station with forty minutes to spare. A van selling coffee and waffles was parked on the concourse outside the station entrance: a cute, vintage-looking vehicle painted sky-blue, with corrugated metal sides and a wooden serving hatch. Its appearance made Bo think of sun-baked market squares in the South of France. Bo paid for a coffee from the smiling woman behind the hatch, and carried it to a nearby bench. There she sat and sipped her drink, looking out over the lanes of traffic making their stop-start way progress along the Euston Road.

  At exactly eleven o’clock, Bo pushed through the revolving doors of an anonymous concrete office block and took the lift to the third floor. There, a bored-looking girl with fuchsia nails motioned for Bo to take a seat, and Bo obediently lowered herself into a blue armchair next to the water cooler.

  She tried to ignore the sinking feeling that had begun to spread through her as she waited for her interview. It wasn’t just that she felt an almost visceral aversion to being inside the airless, blandly corporate office, but also the fact that it was the headquarters of Petits Pains, a company which operated food outlets in airports and railway stations. Their outlets sold pre-packaged baguettes and baked-from-frozen croissants to customers who were in too much of a hurry to find a more appetising alternative. Petits Pains outlets were just the kind of places that Bo, as a rule, tried to avoid.

  But as Bo stared at a tired-looking pot plant on the floor next to her chair, she told herself to keep an open mind. Granted, working in the marketing department of a chain of sandwich bars did not exactly fulfil her youthful ambition of working with food, but she had to be realistic. Her redundancy money would not support her for long, and she needed to find a job.

  In a featureless meeting room overlooking the Euston Road, Bo sipped water from a plastic cup while the marketing manager, a plump blonde called Karen, asked about her experience and aspirations. Bo talked about her work at Aspect and described her enthusiasm for all aspects of the design, planning and implementation of marketing campaigns. Karen smiled and nodded approvingly and, forty-five minutes later, Bo stepped out into the December sunshine feeling simultaneously pleased that she had given a good account of herself, and mildly depressed at the thought that she might actually be offered the job.

  She had arranged to meet Hayley for lunch in Soho and, as she strode through the elegant Bloomsbury streets, Bo considered her options. Had her marketing career simply lost momentum, or was she in the throes of a full-on professional crisis?

  Emil, Florence and Simon had all forged careers out of their creative passions. She had absorbed some of their creative conviction by osmosis. Her time in Denmark had offered her a tantalising glimpse of a different kind of career from the one she had known, and made her wonder if it might not be crazy to think she could make a living from doing something she loved. It was as if a spark had ignited inside her, but it risked being snuffed out by the harsh realities of life, and by her need to start earning money soon.

  Her professional dilemma occupied her thoughts for the duration of her walk from Bloomsbury to Soho, where she was to meet Hayley. She pushed open the door to the Dim Sum restaurant on Wardour Street and took a stool at the bar in the window to wait for her former colleague. An efficient waitress with a slick black bob handed her a menu, which she perused idly whilst watching the trendy media-types passing along the pavement on the other side of the tinted glass. After a few moments, a gust of cold air cut through the warm, slightly steamy atmosphere of the restaurant, as the door swung open beside her.

  ‘Hi, Hayles,’ Bo said, stepping down from the stool to kiss Hayley on the cheek.

  Hayley peeled off her jacket and hung it on the back of her stool. The waitress reappeared promptly, handed Hayley a menu and hovered nearby, waiting for their order.

  ‘So, how was the interview?’ Hayley asked amiably, once they had ordered and the waitress had scuttled away.

  ‘I think it went okay,’ Bo replied in a non-committal voice. She gave a brief precis of the content of the interview.

  ‘Sounds to me like it went well,’ Hayley said encouragingly.

  Bo shrugged. ‘I s’pose,’ she mumbled.

  Hayley returned a puzzled look. ‘Don’t you want the job?’

  They were interrupted by the rea
ppearance of the waitress with their drinks, and Bo was grateful for the distraction. Given Hayley’s penchant for gossip, Bo knew that – if she told Hayley the truth – news of her career crisis would be all around the Aspect office by the end of the afternoon.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she murmured evasively. ‘I just want to keep my options open, that’s all.’ Hayley pulled a ‘fair enough’ expression and took a sip from her glass.

  ‘How’s things in the office, anyway?’ Bo asked, keen to steer the subject away from herself. Hayley twirled the end of her ponytail and rolled her eyes heavenward.

  ‘It’s a nightmare. We’ve got a trade fair coming up and the directors won’t pay for any extra help. Even Claire admits it’s too much,’ she said bitterly. Bo pulled a sympathetic face.

  ‘The Christmas party’s next week and I haven’t even had time to buy an outfit,’ Hayley added, but the merest flicker of Bo’s facial muscles drew her up short. ‘Oh, sorry,’ Hayley murmured sheepishly, ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Bo cut in, with a forced brightness, ‘I wasn’t expecting an invitation.’

  A silence followed, during which the waitress returned and placed two rectangular dishes of steaming dumplings on the bar in front of them.

  ‘It’s going to be a bit of a low-key do this year,’ Hayley went on, in a transparent attempt to make her former colleague feel better. ‘Just drinks and a buffet. Company efficiencies, and all that.’ Bo nodded expressionlessly. She was faintly surprised to discover that she felt no sadness at all that she was missing out on the Aspect Christmas party.

  Hayley chewed on a mouthful of dumpling. ‘I’ve got high hopes for some quality romantic indiscretions taking place this year,’ she said, glancing at Bo out of the side of her eye. A moment passed, during which Bo sensed that Hayley was waiting for her to say something.

  ‘Oh, yeah? Who’s your money on?’ Bo asked, her tone studiously indifferent.

  Hayley’s nose wrinkled and she puffed her cheeks, as if the question demanded serious consideration.

  ‘Well,’ she began eventually, ‘Dev in tech support has just split up from his fiancee, so he’s a frontrunner. And Lorraine is anyone’s after a few shandies.’

  She paused to take a sip of Coke, before adding as an afterthought, ‘But I wouldn’t rule Ben out of the running. He’s always been something of a dark horse on the romance front, hasn’t he?’

  Bo felt a jolt of panic seize her stomach. She opened her mouth as if to speak but closed it again, aware of Hayley’s laser-beam gaze on the side of her face.

  ‘Actually, Ben said something strange to me the other day,’ Hayley went on airily, returning to her food, while Bo kept her eyes resolutely on the window.

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ she replied, a little shakily.

  ‘Yeah. We were in the kitchen at the end of the day, getting a beer. I’d been flat out working on the brochure for the fair, and I joked that you were lucky to be out of there, and that you were probably having the time of your life in Denmark.’ Bo smiled thinly and took a sip of her drink.

  ‘Anyway,’ Hayley continued, ‘Ben made that little laugh he does when he’s about to be sarcastic and said, “only if you think playing Scrabble is having the time of your life”.’

  Hayley pushed her plate away and turned to face Bo once more. ‘So I said, how do you know she’s been playing Scrabble, Ben? And he just looked at me like, well, kind of like you’re looking at me now.’

  Bo had turned to meet Hayley’s gaze, feeling her cheeks burn, and time stretched as silence filled the air between them. Eventually, Bo dropped her eyes, exhaled slowly and pushed her own plate away.

  ‘To be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t work it out sooner,’ she said quietly, staring at her cutlery.

  ‘Well, I had my suspicions,’ Hayley replied, ‘but I figured it was none of my business.’

  Bo’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘I know I like to gossip, but I do have some discretion, you know,’ Hayley said, feigning offence. ‘So how long has it been going on?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘Since February,’ Bo replied, before hastily adding, ‘but to be honest, I’m not sure it is still going on. It’s all got a bit . . . complicated, since I left Aspect.’ She glanced across, half expecting to see the glint which habitually appeared in Hayley’s eyes whenever she had some new snippet of intelligence. But instead, Hayley’s expression was one of concern.

  ‘Out of sight, out of mind, eh?’ she asked softly.

  Bo’s brow furrowed. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, for what it’s worth, your secret’s safe with me. I won’t breathe a word to anyone.’ Hayley pinched her thumb and forefinger together and mimed zipping her lips shut.

  Bo smiled. ‘Thanks, Hayls. But like I said, there might not be a secret to keep any more.’

  They chatted for a little while longer about work and their respective plans for Christmas, until Hayley glanced at her watch and sighed. ‘I’d better get back to the office,’ she said glumly.

  They stepped down from their stools and began to pull their coats on. ‘Just out of interest,’ Bo asked, as she tugged at the zip of her coat, ‘what gave it away, about me and Ben? Were we that obvious?’

  Hayley smiled, the merest glimmer of gratification in her eye. ‘It was the way you reacted at your leaving do, when I told you what I’d heard about Milton Keynes.’

  ‘The way I reacted?’ Bo repeated, frowning.

  Hayley struggled to conceal a smirk. ‘Bo, you went white as a sheet, and within five minutes you’d walked out on your own leaving drinks. Then thirty seconds later Ben bolted after you. It was a bit of a giveaway.’

  Bo grimaced. ‘Oh God, don’t remind me.’

  They stepped out onto the pavement together and made their way back to Oxford Street, where they parted ways with a hug. Bo watched Hayley scurry over a pelican crossing and disappear behind a wall of queuing buses, then she turned left and began to walk towards Oxford Circus.

  There seemed a certain irony to what had just happened: that her relationship with Ben, which she had taken such pains to conceal while it was going on, had been discovered just at the point at which it seemed to be falling apart. Now that it was out in the open, it sounded so cliched – a secret office romance that wasn’t such a secret after all. Yet, as she weaved her way through the crowds of shoppers, she had no feeling of regret that they had been found out, but rather a sense of relief. After all, whether anyone at Aspect knew about her relationship with Ben, and what they thought about it, was no longer any concern of hers. It might have mattered, once, but it certainly didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was what she and Ben felt about each other, and to be sure of that, she would have to see him face to face.

  Chapter 19

  Back at the flat, Bo kicked off her heels, changed into her comfiest tracksuit and collapsed onto the sofa with a slice of home-made brownie in one hand and her phone in the other. She had resolved to send a text to Ben suggesting that they meet up, but knew she must choose her words carefully so as to sound neither hostile nor needy. After much thought, she settled on: Hi Ben. Sorry I didn’t get back to you while I was in Denmark. Do you fancy meeting up this weekend? Be good to catch up. Bo x

  She half-expected to be fobbed off with an excuse, but his reply – Okay, what did you have in mind? - though brief, was amenable. She was reluctant to suggest dinner a deux in a restaurant. That would carry a certain weight of romantic expectation, as well as having the potential for becoming a mortifying re-run of their last date before she had left for Denmark. Instead, she suggested lunch at a street food market which had recently opened in Southwark.

  Sounds good. See you then, Ben replied.

  Saturday arrived cold, crisp and clear. Bo put on an ensemble designed to send the message that she had dressed for comfort rather than to impress: jeans and a polo neck, Ugg boots, and the goose-down jacket she had bought at Aalborg airport on her way back from Denmark.
>
  The market occupied a sprawling site beside the arches of a rail viaduct in the shadow of the Shard building, and the sound of trains squealing to a halt in London Bridge station could be heard in the distance. It was laid out in an informal, almost ramshackle style, with a mix of permanent sites built into the railway arches, and mobile pitches on the paved outdoor areas.

  Bo had arrived early, so she wandered between the pitches, fascinated not just by the enticing array of cuisines on offer – everything from wood-fired pizzas to ramen, Turkish dumplings and burritos – but also by the vendors themselves, many of whom looked no older than herself, and the variety of vehicles they traded from: converted ice cream trucks, vintage vans and airstream trailers. Some of the vendors had customised their vans with their own artwork, or explained the story behind their food on a hand-written chalk board. The result was a bohemian, festival-like vibe, in which the vendors seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as the customers.

  Bo bought a coffee from a man in a purple campervan and took it to the seating area housed beneath one of the railway arches. The communal tables gave the space an egalitarian, common-room vibe which, combined with the warm glow of the paraffin heaters, made it feel cosy and welcoming – hyggeligt, in fact. Emil would approve, Bo thought, gazing out through the railway arch at the growing crowd of hipsters, urban twenty-somethings and young families. She had just drained the dregs of her coffee when she spotted Ben’s tall frame striding through the crowd, hands thrust in the pockets of a grey wool jacket, striped scarf wound around his neck.

  ‘Hi, Blu-Ray. Long time no see.’ He gave a boyish grin and she reflexively offered her cheek for a kiss. As his lips brushed against the side of her face she felt a stab of some difficult emotion – longing, perhaps, or regret – but she swatted the feeling away.

  ‘Nice coat, is it new?’ Ben asked, casting an approving eye over her figure.

  ‘Thanks. I got it in Denmark,’ she replied, making a quarter-turn and striking a jokey, modelesque pose. ‘The Danes say there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Turns out they have a point,’ she laughed.