by Rosie Blake
On Monday morning she got everything ready in the shop, putting a new wooden number in the corner of the window to count down to the next display. She couldn’t help squeezing herself in excitement. She’d be unveiling it tomorrow and she couldn’t wait; she’d loved putting this one together. Just before three o’clock, she went upstairs to change into something she could exercise in: leggings pulled out of her bag, and a big enough top to cover any bulges. It might be good to go for a jog, she told herself, blocking out the whistle of cold wind as she turned off the high street and into a side street, heading to the end where a pair of cottages were set back from the road.
Lauren’s cottage was painted white, with a thatched roof, tubs of lavender outside the front door, a flaking wrought-iron bench underneath the window and a large knocker on the door that Clara reached for, laughing as Lauren appeared almost immediately, dressed in black leggings, a short-sleeved T-shirt and a neon-pink headband.
‘Was that a bit keen?’ she asked, standing in the doorway. ‘They’ve been gone about ten minutes and I’m totally overexcited about you coming… Oh my God.’ She stopped, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘It is frickin’ freezing, get inside now,’ she said, pulling on Clara’s arm.
Clara had twisted round to look back over her shoulder. ‘It’s all so lovely, so English.’
‘It is, isn’t it? Although the cottage is listed, which is bad because I can never have a kitchen extension.’ She pouted. ‘And Patrick nearly sold it when he found out we weren’t allowed to put up a Sky dish.’
Clara looked back at her, brow creasing.
‘For Sky TV,’ Lauren explained, seeing her incomprehension.
‘Oh, of course,’ Clara said. ‘We have that in Denmark, and the in-ter-net,’ she added slowly, pretending to be clueless.
‘You’re weird. Now come in,’ Lauren said cheerfully, standing to one side to let Clara squeeze past. ‘Sorry about the world’s smallest corridor. Go into the room on the left; I’ve lit the fire, hence the absurdly thin T-shirt when it’s minus twenty outside.’
Clara ducked into the front room. ‘It gets that cold at home,’ she said, picturing the thick layer of snow that would be covering the park near their old family house in Denmark. ‘This is magical,’ she said, forgetting everything and just looking around the front room with its low cream ceiling and thick wooden beams, the yellow-and-grey-striped cushioned window seat, plastic toys loaded into a large box in the corner of the room, a few stray pieces of Lego scattered on the floor.
A woodburner crackled opposite, the inside pulsing as if it had an orange heart. ‘How gorgeous,’ she said, feeling instantly relaxed as she stood in front of it, holding out the palms of her hands as a sort of automatic response to any heat source.
‘It’s so nice to light it,’ Lauren said, following her into the room. ‘I hardly ever do, as a toddler is essentially a flammable hazard and I don’t trust him not to scale the wire mesh, open the door and cover himself in ashes or worse.’ She shivered at the thought. ‘It’s like he tries to head straight to danger no matter what you do. The other day he was convinced he could fly after seeing an aeroplane, followed by my dreadful explanation of the power of flight, which somehow meant he thought he could throw himself from his bed because he, quote, had a large wingspan too. I practically died hearing the thud – totally relieved to see him crying and then running away from me as I tried to check him for injury.’
‘Oh God, I can imagine,’ Clara said, for a moment wondering what she herself would be like as a mother. Would she be safety-conscious, or would she let them roam wild and free? ‘It’s lovely seeing children in the shop,’ she went on. ‘I’m not used to being around them, and they’re so mad and joyful. I love it.’
‘They’re certainly mad,’ Lauren confirmed. ‘So, are you just over here for a while, from Denmark, that is? You sound so… English. How have you ended up in Suffolk?’
‘Part of my travels. I’ve lived over here for a few years. I left my job a while back.’ Not wanting to expand, she continued, ‘I originally came out this way because I wanted to see a village like the ones in Midsomer Murders – it’s really big in Denmark,’ she explained with a laugh, keen to ensure the mood stayed light.
‘Really?’
Clara nodded. ‘Huge. DCI Barnaby is a pretty big deal.’
‘Weird,’ Lauren said, throwing another log into the woodburner.
‘I worked in London for a few years, but all that is in the past now,’ Clara said hurriedly, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve.
Fortunately Lauren was distracted by a loud pop from the logs in the woodburner and didn’t ask any more. ‘Now, given that you’ve turned up in sports kit but it’s arctic out there, why don’t we do an exercise DVD? I have this one from America that is for different abilities, so we could do the first level and maybe next week go up to the next one.’
‘OK,’ Clara said, pleased to be off the topic but alarmed to be diving into the exercise part of the meeting.
‘Let me set it up then. First, though, tea? Coffee?’
She moved through to the kitchen as Clara called out ‘Coffee,’ returning moments later with a tray piled high with mugs, biscuits and even a small bowl of popcorn.
‘Maybe we should watch a few minutes to see what we’re letting ourselves in for,’ she suggested, opening the DVD wrapping with her teeth.
‘Oh, it’s a new one,’ Clara said.
Lauren grimaced. ‘Sort of. Last Christmas, in fact. Don’t tell Patrick, he thinks I’m up to Level 3 doing AbsTastic.’ She patted her stomach. ‘Men are idiots,’ she said. She reached to put the DVD into the machine, then sat back on the sofa and pointed at the tray. ‘Help yourself to milk or cream, it’s in the small jug – and there’s sugar if you want it.’ She grabbed a small handful of popcorn as the DVD introduction music kicked in.
Ten minutes later, the coffee had been drunk and they’d both kicked off their trainers and were curled up watching the three perspiring women on the screen lying on the floor and crunching into balls.
Lauren popped a second chocolate digestive into her mouth. ‘That looks hard,’ she commented, a crumb escaping from her mouth, which made Clara giggle. ‘Do you think they are actually robots?’
‘I wonder if they exercise all day every day to look like that,’ Clara mused.
‘I wonder if they are Photoshopped.’
‘I think that’s only in photos,’ Clara said, reaching for another biscuit.
‘Gah, it’s sickening,’ Lauren said, pointing at the screen. ‘I bet they have high-flying jobs, keep their toned bodies in perfect shape and perform sex acts on their partners every night.’
‘Hold da kaeft,’ Clara said, admiring one of the women’s leotards.
‘What does that mean?’ Lauren asked.
‘I’m not sure of the exact translation. It’s rude. Your equivalent is bloody hell, I think.’
‘Ooh.’ Lauren’s eyes widened. ‘Great,’ she said, twisting round to look at Clara. ‘I keep using really stupid alternatives to swear words because I don’t want Rory to pick up any. And Patrick says I’m not allowed to say frickin’ any more, which is totally not a swear word, but anyway.’ She reached out and put a piece of popcorn in her mouth. ‘Teach me some Danish ones. Most of my English ones don’t even make sense. Yesterday I actually said, “Oh for actual fudge sake”, which made me want to cry. It has to stop.’
‘OK, well… the rudest is probably rend kusse or fuck dig,’ Clara said as Lauren practically spat out her tea.
‘Not sure that’ll cut it,’ she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Rend dig means the same and is pretty bad,’ Clara admitted. ‘There’s kælling, which means bitch, but I like that one when I’m really cross and need to just let it out. Go to hell is ga ad, or you could try lort, which is sort of like poo or shit.’
‘I like that, it sounds a lot more aggressive than it is,’ Lauren said, practising it. ‘Lort!�
�� She pointed at the woodburner before picking up a nearby Action Man and shouting, ‘Ga ad!’ in his face.
‘Very good,’ Clara said, giggling. ‘Oh look, they’re doing burpees,’ she said, pointing at the screen.
Lauren snuggled deeper into the sofa. ‘What a woman – I feel like I’m getting thinner just being in the same room as her.’
Clara rested her head back on the soft leather of the sofa, the crackling logs and the smell of popcorn making her feel woozy. For a second she closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth, thinking of home: drinking gløgg around the family fireplace, playing endless rounds of cards, safe from the cold outside. She had an intense craving for a romkugle, a rum-flavoured chocolate treat, alarmed at the sudden lump in her throat as she remembered whose favourite they were. ‘This is so hygge,’ she said, exhaling slowly.
‘Is that bad too?’ Lauren’s forehead creased in worry.
‘No,’ Clara smiled. ‘Hygge is great. It means… well, there’s not an exact English word for it, but it sort of means things are very cosy. With the fire, the drinks, the company, the low lighting… it’s all hygge.’
‘Hygge,’ Lauren repeated. ‘That’s nice: I like it.’
Outside, a car’s headlights moved across the darkening room and Lauren squeaked, breaking the vibe by diving off the sofa onto the floor and yelling, ‘Quickly, Clara, quickly,’ as she did so.
In a rush, Clara followed her lead, unsure of what was happening. Lauren was lying flat on her back, knees bent as if she was about to give birth. Clara did the same, about to ask why when she heard the front door open and voices outside the room.
‘Lort,’ whispered Lauren, doing a sit-up.
Clara started giggling as she copied her, noticing biscuit crumbs on her chest as she lifted herself up.
As Patrick and Rory appeared in the doorway, both women turned to look at them, puffing in their exertions. Patrick peered at them lying at haphazard angles on the floor, then glanced at the tray of empty wrappers, popcorn kernels and coffee remnants, one eyebrow lifted. ‘Good workout?’ he asked.
‘Hmm,’ Lauren said, manoeuvring herself into a sitting position and raising one arm to put it behind her head in some kind of stretch. ‘Really motivating,’ she replied, without a pause.
Clara, a terrible liar, merely nodded from her prostrate position in front of the fire. Fortunately the room was so warm it had given them both pink cheeks, and she thought they might get away with it.
‘Mumma, is that nopcorn?’
‘Oh lort…’
Chapter 12
She’d stayed on for dinner with Lauren and Patrick, eating steaming bowls of risotto from trays in the living room and watching a scary movie about a writer living in a wood. Patrick had walked her back to the shop and she was grateful for the company, still replaying moments from the film in her head, jumping at the shadows.
She wasn’t sure what time it was when she heard the noise, her eyes snapping open, staring into black nothingness. The alarm clock’s digits were saying it was just past 2 a.m. Had Roddy got up? Had Lady CaCa moved in her cage? She thought of the film; the man stalking the writer in the wood. There was the noise again: a voice, a low voice. Lying in bed, she felt fear freeze her to the sheets, her body taut, every muscle strained, listening for the next whisper of sound. There it was again: a man’s groan, something bumping into something else. Oh my God, she definitely wasn’t imagining this. Someone was down there. She could hear them lumbering around by the door to the shop. They were here to burgle it, to steal Saturday’s takings. Why had she left the money in the till?
Perhaps it was picturing herself ringing Louisa to tell her she’d allowed her to be robbed that got her moving. She placed both feet on the floor and straightened up slowly, reaching for the dressing gown she had thrown over a chair. Her mind was racing ten moves ahead as she pulled on her slipper socks as quietly as she could. The sounds had stopped and she paused, hoping whoever it was had changed their mind, had looked at the lock and left. Panic gripped her as she racked her brains. Had she locked the internal door? Had she remembered?
She knew she had to stop them. Creeping out of bed, she scoured the flat for anything that might help her. She reached for the wooden hobby horse she had brought up to the flat earlier that day. She’d been braiding its mane, planning a cowboy window display for some time in the future. She picked it up by its head, feeling the satisfyingly heavy weight of the wood in her hands. Looping a string of fairy lights around her arm like a lasso, she felt more prepared, a surge of anger coursing through her now at the audacity of this burglar. How dare he sneak in like this and scare her? How dare he rob a toyshop? She needed to tell him he was a braendt.
She decided that speed was of the essence, so she flung open the door from the flat and bounded down the stairs, shouting out a string of offensive words, a mixture of Danish and English. A bulky figure wearing a long dark overcoat turned towards her, his eyes widening in alarm. Her shock tactics had worked, she thought as she raised the hobby horse above her head and hit him with the pole.
‘Fuck,’ he said, doubling over immediately, hands raised to protect his head as she knocked him to the floor, wrapping the fairy-light wire round him as quickly as she could.
‘What the f – What the hell are you…’ His words became muffled as the wire pressed into his face, cutting across his cheeks and mouth.
He hadn’t got a weapon, she noticed with relief, just a nasty bunch of keys in his hand that she quickly reached out and snatched from him.
He roared out, making her leap backwards. ‘Gimme ’ose ’ack… mine.’
She turned quickly, racing back upstairs to the flat to plug in the landline she’d disconnected earlier after a window company representative had rung four times in half an hour and she had told him he was a svin and to stick his triple-glazed PVC windows up his røu.
She had done it, she had tied up a burglar. Now she needed the police to get here and she could relax. He hadn’t made it into the shop, she thought with some relief.
‘Don’t move, they’re on their way! Don’t try anything stupid!’ she found herself yelling, suddenly picturing the horror movie and fully expecting him to start crawling towards her up the stairs, groaning, clawed hand reaching for the next step and the inevitable weapon that would be lying around (pitchfork/kitchen knife/axe).
He was shouting things at varying intervals but the words were still muffled as she scoured the kitchen counter and the sofa cushions for the phone. Finally she located it in the drawer she’d tidied it into, underneath a tea towel. Staring at the handset, however, she realised that in her panic she couldn’t remember the number for the police in England. She tried the Danish one, punching the numbers in, her breath coming fast.
‘This call cannot be connected.’
‘Lort!’ He mustn’t know. ‘They’re coming right now,’ she yelled over her shoulder, almost cringing as she imagined his face peering around the bottom of the door, limbs free of their shackles, crawling across the space to kill her.
She kept her eyes on the door as she punched in one of the numbers on the corkboard. There was the sound of glass and chatter at the other end and then a familiar voice. ‘Hello, the Fox and Hounds, how can I help?’
‘Gavin,’ she hissed, ‘it’s me, it’s Clara. Can you hear me?’ She pressed the phone into her ear, desperate to be in that pub, surrounded by people not about to stab her.
‘Who’s me? Louisa, is that you? Are you calling from Spain? We’re having a lock-in, it’s like old times, but we miss you…’
Clara didn’t have time to ponder the fact that his voice sounded different, softer. ‘No, it’s me,’ she repeated, ‘Clara. Someone’s broken in. I’m calling from the flat. He’s downstairs right now.’
Gavin had obviously heard enough to realise it was serious. ‘Clara? OK. Stay there,’ he said in a louder voice. She felt instant relief that he was going to help her. ‘I’ll be over in two seconds.’ She heard him yell acr
oss the room. ‘Clive, I’ve got to go out for a few minutes. Man the bar and don’t let anyone take the tip jar. It wasn’t funny last time and it won’t be funny now.’
