Hygge and Kisses

by Clara Christensen

  Out of nowhere a memory popped into her mind from Skagen, of Emil telling them about the concept of hygge in the summerhouse, explaining to a sceptical Simon that it wasn’t just about soft furnishings, it was about taking time to appreciate what you have, to be grateful and to think about the things that really matter. Time had been the first casualty of her lifestyle, she realised. Life had become so frenetic, so focused around proving herself at work, that she had not allowed herself the time to wonder whether the lifestyle she was chasing was one she actually wanted. Now, with time on her hands thanks to her redundancy, the conviction was growing that she knew what made her happy – that she’d always known, but somehow she had lost sight of it along the way. She wanted more from her career than office drudgery. She wanted to be challenged and stimulated by her job, and to feel she was connecting with people, and bringing pleasure to their lives, in however small a way.

  The electronic trill of her phone’s ring tone brought her reflections to an abrupt standstill. Marsh Recruitment – Shelley flashed up on the screen. A jolt of some uncomfortable emotion passed through Bo, and she set her mug down on the coffee table.

  ‘Hi, Shelley,’ she said, trying to mask her apprehension.

  ‘Hi, Bo. I’m calling with good news,’ Shelley trilled gleefully. Bo could hear the sounds of the office in the background: conversation and ringing phones. ‘Karen from Petits Pains has just called. They’d like to offer you the job!’

  In the silence which followed, Bo was conscious of the clarity she had felt moments earlier draining away.

  ‘Wow, really?’ she stalled, ‘I wasn’t expecting to hear anything till January.’

  ‘Well, they must have liked you because they’ve made their minds up already,’ Shelley chirped, in a tone that suggested Bo ought to feel flattered.

  ‘Wow,’ Bo repeated, expressionlessly, feeling uncomfortably as if she was letting Shelley down by failing to match her enthusiasm. Perhaps sensing that something was needed to clinch the deal, Shelley began to read out a summary of the terms on offer, the salary, holiday entitlement and bonus scheme, while Bo listened in silence, staring blankly into the middle distance.

  ‘Do I have to let them know before Christmas?’ Bo asked, once Shelley had finished. There was a silence, during which Shelley’s surprise and disappointment that Bo had not accepted on the spot was palpable. When she eventually answered, Shelley’s voice was pitched several tones lower than before.

  ‘That would be helpful,’ she responded coolly.

  Having promised to get back to Shelley in the next couple of days, Bo hung up and collapsed against the sofa cushion, her mind a fog of doubt and indecision. The tealights continued to flicker, but the flat no longer felt hyggeligt, it felt claustrophobic. She went over to the window and peered behind the blind. The sky was battleship-grey and it would soon be getting dark, but Bo was seized by a desire to be outdoors, to let the cold, winter air clear her head. She blew out the candles and pulled on her goose-down coat and Emil’s gloves, and headed out into the afternoon gloom.

  The streetlamps were beginning to glow orange, and car headlights swooped past as she meandered through the streets of her neighbourhood. She had no destination in mind, but hoped that the process of walking would bring some order to her thoughts. In spite of the certainty she had felt minutes earlier, when she had been sure that she knew what she wanted from her career, now that the choice had been put before her, her confidence was crumbling. She was torn between whether to stick with the security of the familiar, or trust her instincts and try and forge her own path. The conviction was growing that this was some sort of test of her mettle, a chance to prove her maturity. The trouble was, she was not at all certain which was the grown-up thing to do: to accept the job and buckle down to a corporate career, or take a risk and follow her dream?

  Chapter 21

  At four o’clock on Christmas Eve, Bo walked up the sloping driveway to her parents’ front door, which was resplendent with a festive holly wreath. Despite her mild misgivings at the prospect of spending four days with her family, it was still a relief to leave London behind, and all its associated pressures and responsibilities. Reminding herself of her resolution to be grateful, and not to take her family for granted, Bo took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell.

  Barbara answered the door, casually elegant in a lamb’s-wool sweater and loosely tailored trousers.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ she said, giving Bo a kiss and reaching out to take her overnight case. Bo removed her coat and shoes in the porch and went inside.

  ‘The house looks lovely, Mum,’ Bo said, knowing how much time and effort Barbara devoted to festive decor every year, transforming their home in a characteristically tasteful, John Lewis sort of way. A garland of pine fronds had been woven between the staircase bannisters and, as she passed the front room doorway, Bo glimpsed the handsome spruce tree wreathed in lights and matching purple and gold baubles.

  ‘Waitrose have just delivered –’ said Barbara, before adding in a heavy voice, ‘– they substituted your father’s port.’

  Bo grinned. ‘Oh dear. How’s he coping?’

  ‘He’ll live,’ Barbara replied tersely.

  The spacious kitchen bore testament to the recent supermarket delivery. Every surface groaned with the traditional accoutrements of Christmas gluttony: an enormous polythene-wrapped turkey, packs of smoked salmon, jars of condiments, family-size boxes of biscuits and assorted wedges of cheese. Seated on a stool at the kitchen island, amidst a mountain of grey Ocado carrier bags, Clive was peering dubiously at the label on the bottle of port.

  As soon as he caught sight of Bo, he put down the bottle and broke into a smile. ‘Ah, here she is,’ he said, rising from his stool at the kitchen island and leaning across a boxed panettone to kiss her cheek.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ Bo said.

  ‘Wine?’ he asked convivially.

  ‘Actually, I’d love a tea.’ Her father looked mildly disappointed, as if her not drinking made his own yearning for a glass harder to justify, but he dutifully carried the kettle to the sink and began to assemble the tea things.

  ‘So, how was Denmark?’ Clive asked, once the three of them were seated around the island, sipping tea.

  ‘Amazing, thanks,’ Bo replied, taking a nibble from one of Barbara’s home-made mince-pies. She gave a picture-postcard precis of the highlights of her trip: the cosy summerhouse, the shifting Rabjerg dune, the colliding seas at Grenen, and the Northern Lights, purposely avoiding any mention of what had happened with Emil.

  ‘Sounds beautiful,’ Barbara sighed, standing to pull an apron over her head, getting ready to tackle the vegetables in preparation for the Christmas meal. Clive looked faintly sceptical and muttered about the astronomical levels of tax and the high cost of alcohol in Denmark, as if these were serious shortcomings which ought to be borne in mind.

  As soon as Barbara set to work peeling the potatoes, Clive poured himself a glass of Merlot and launched into an account of the golf club’s Christmas dinner-dance which he had compered the previous weekend. Bo smiled indulgently as her father, his eyes gleaming, described his address to the retiring club president, and how the evening had almost ended in disaster when the batteries in his microphone had failed. The anecdote had a well-rehearsed quality and, judging by Barbara’s thinly veiled boredom, was one that she had heard several times already.

  Bo drained her tea, grabbed a peeler from the cutlery drawer and went over to the worktop to help with the mound of maris pipers. ‘What time’s Lauren coming tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘About eleven,’ replied Barbara. ‘They’ll set off after the twins have opened their stockings. Lauren said the twins have hardly slept all week,’ she warned.

  Clive, who was already onto his second glass of wine, assumed a look of dread. ‘I hope you’ve brought your ear plugs,’ he joked. With a pang of guilt at her disloyalty to her niece and nephew, Bo grimaced.

  After an evening curled up on the sofa,
watching a period drama on television, Bo said goodnight to her parents and went up to bed. The guest bedroom was, as usual, spotlessly clean and tidy, and smelt faintly of lily of the valley. There was something innately comforting about being back in her childhood bedroom, the familiar ticking sound from the cooling radiator, the feel of the thick cotton bedding against her skin, the unstinting, well-appointed comfort of it all. She was about to doze off when a gentle creak drew her attention. The bedroom door inched open and her parents’ little black cat padded proprietorially into the room, its tail raised in greeting.

  ‘Hello, Nancy,’ Bo murmured, patting the duvet invitingly. With a chirrup, the cat jumped up onto the bed and turned in circles a few times, before curling up in a neat crescent beside her. Bo switched off the bedside light and, with one hand resting on the warm body of the purring feline, was soon fast asleep.

  *

  Bo woke up on Christmas morning to the sound of the shower running in her parents’ en suite. She put her arm down by her side, but the cat had vanished during the night, leaving just a round indentation in the duvet where it had slept. It was eight o’clock and, although she was tempted to drift back to sleep, a sense of daughterly obligation forced her out of bed and down the hallway to the bathroom.

  By the time Bo had showered, dressed and made her way downstairs, a harassed-looking Barbara was arranging smoked salmon onto tiny triangles of brown bread in the kitchen, while Clive was bringing in firewood from the garden in a show of making himself useful.

  ‘Can I do anything, Mum?’ Bo offered, pouring herself a coffee from the filter machine.

  ‘Lemon wedges,’ Barbara replied distractedly, grinding black pepper over the smoked salmon. Bo obediently found a lemon in the fruit bowl and cut it into wedges to place around the edge of the oval platter, which her mother promptly covered with cling film and placed inside the fridge.

  Clive deposited the wicker basket full of firewood next on the kitchen hearth and, with the self-righteous air of one who had done his bit, plucked a bottle of Champagne out of the fridge.

  ‘You’re starting early, Dad. It’s only half-nine,’ Bo teased.

  ‘Just something to steady my nerves before the terrible twins arrive,’ he replied, looking stoic. At the worktop, where she was forcing stuffing beneath the turkey’s skin, Barbara tutted.

  ‘You’ll join me, won’t you?’ Clive looked at Bo pleadingly.

  Sensing, that her father needed moral support, she said, ‘Go on then, it is Christmas.’ Clive beamed, dropped sugar cubes into two flutes, added a dash of bitters and topped it up with Champagne. They clinked glasses and Bo took a sip, savouring the cocktail’s ice-cold fizz in her throat.

  Just after eleven, Lauren and her family pulled up in their Volvo four-by-four. The twins tumbled out of the back seat and made a bee-line for the front door and the presents they knew awaited them inside. Bo had to dodge sideways as they tore past.

  Barbara trailed in their wake, calling, ‘Amelie, Freddy, don’t forget to take your shoes off!’

  ‘Looking good, sis. I’m liking the curls,’ Lauren said, giving Bo’s hair a playful flick as they embraced on the driveway.

  ‘Thanks. Thought I’d go au naturel for a bit. Give the straighteners a rest. Happy Christmas, Nick. How are you?’ Bo said, turning to greet her brother-in-law, who was unloading a seemingly endless collection of cases and bags from the boot of the car.

  ‘I’m good, thanks, Bo. Happy Christmas,’ he mumbled distractedly.

  Inside, Clive escaped to the kitchen to knock up another round of Champagne cocktails while the twins tore around the ground floor, flushed with excitement, ignoring Lauren and Barbara’s attempts to calm them through a combination of admonishment and distraction. Once the car was unloaded, the twins had both visited the bathroom, and the adults had been handed drinks, everyone assembled in the front room.

  ‘Who’d like to open some presents?’ Barbara asked, clapping her hands together like an enthusiastic teacher. With a chorus of shrieks and squeals, the twins scrambled down from the sofa and, within minutes, the beige carpet had disappeared under sheaves of torn wrapping paper.

  Amidst the chaos, the adults passed their gifts around. Bo’s hygge-themed presents were well received; the scented candles and Aquavit were sniffed appreciatively, and the jars of home-made treats were complimented and cooed over. When Bo unwrapped her present from Lauren she broke into a broad grin.

  ‘An aebleskiver pan! Thanks!’ she exclaimed, holding up a deep-set frying pan with a base filled with circular indentations.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ answered Lauren, faintly nonplussed. ‘What’s it for? The instructions are all in Danish.’

  ‘Pancake balls,’ Bo replied. ‘Sounds painful,’ Clive chortled from his armchair by the fireplace. Barbara shot him a prim look.

  ‘They’re like a cross between a pancake and a donut, basically,’ Bo explained enthusiastically. ‘I found a recipe on a food blog. I’ve been dying to try them.’

  They sat down to lunch at a table sumptuously laid with a red damask tablecloth, a silver candelabra and Barbara’s best china. Crackers were snapped, drinks were poured and plates heaving with turkey and all its accompaniments were passed around. A pleasurable quiet descended on the room as everyone began to eat. Even the twins fell silent in their booster seats, eagerly stuffing chunks of roast potato and shreds of turkey into their mouths.

  ‘So, Bo, any news on the job front?’ Nick asked, blinking at her across the table. Although she knew the topic of work was bound to come up during her stay, she had hoped to avoid it until after Christmas dinner, at least. But Nick’s question riled her less than it might have, had she not been feeling light-headed after two Champagne cocktails and a glass of wine.

  ‘Well, I was offered a job last week, actually,’ she answered, guardedly.

  ‘That’s fantastic, darling. Why didn’t you mention it before?’ Barbara said, looking simultaneously hurt and relieved. Bo gave an apologetic shrug, and braced herself for what she knew was coming next.

  ‘What’s the job?’ Lauren asked from the other side of the table, where she was dabbing gravy from Freddy’s chin with a napkin.

  ‘Marketing executive for Petits Pains. The food company,’ Bo replied.

  ‘Wonderful news, Bo. Congratulations,’ Clive said proudly from the head of the table, raising his wine in her direction. Mirroring his gesture, the others made to pick up their glasses.

  ‘Actually, I turned it down,’ Bo said hastily, before they could complete the toast. A silence descended on the table, with the exception of the twins who, having eaten their fill, were embroiled in a dispute over a paper crown from one of the crackers.

  ‘Why?’ Lauren asked, grabbing Freddy’s hand as he was about to lunge for a clump of Amelie’s hair.

  ‘It just . . . didn’t feel like the right job for me,’ Bo answered cagily. Seemingly oblivious to the escalating conflict between his children, Nick assumed a look of brotherly concern.

  ‘Do you think that was wise?’ he said, rather pompously. Bo glimpsed Lauren’s leg twitch as she kicked him underneath the table, but he ignored the hint. ‘It’s tough out there in the job market at the moment. A bird in the hand, and all that.’

  Bo felt her mask of benign nonchalance begin to slip. She took a fortifying sip of wine. ‘Actually, I’m thinking of a change in direction,’ she said, aware of a trembling feeling in the pit of her stomach. The adult members of her family all looked at her expectantly and, sensing Lauren’s momentary lapse of attention, Freddy leaned sideways and snatched the paper crown out of Amelie’s hand, ripping it in half in the process.

  ‘I want to work with food in a more hands-on role,’ she explained. She sensed bemused looks being exchanged around her and decided that, having gone so far, there was nothing to lose by full disclosure.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about setting up a street food business, actually.’

  ‘A street food business?’ Barbara repli
ed, dubiously. ‘You mean, like a burger van?’

  Bo tittered nervously. ‘No, not a burger van, Mum. Coffee and cakes. Pastries. Brownies. That kind of thing. I want to bake, not flip burgers.’

  She looked around the table, awaiting her family’s reaction, but was met with looks of blank incomprehension. The stunned silence was only broken by Amelie furiously launching her plastic beaker at Freddy’s head, and the ensuing howls of outrage provided Bo with a welcome respite from her family’s concerned scrutiny. Lauren chastised the twins while Barbara rifled around on the dining table in a frantic search for two replacement crowns.

  It took several minutes to placate the twins and, when the conversation eventually resumed, as if by mutual agreement, the topic had moved on to Lauren and Nick’s forthcoming skiing holiday.

  After lunch, the twins were wedged between a snoozing Clive and Barbara on the sofa in front of the Christmas movie, while Nick assembled garish plastic toys on the carpet, teasing tiny twists of wire out of cardboard packaging and cursing at instruction booklets. Bo and Lauren, as family tradition dictated, tackled the meal’s messy aftermath in the kitchen.

  ‘So how long have you been planning the street food idea?’ asked Lauren, filling the sink with soapy water.