by Rosie Blake
Clara was opening and closing her mouth.
‘It was a coincidence,’ she stressed. ‘Why would I want her gone? It’s not exactly Harrods,’ she said, growing more confident with each sentence, her cheeks reddening as she spoke.
‘Oh, great, insult the place, it is my mother’s livelihood after all,’ he cut in, not wanting to hear her pathetic excuses.
‘I know it is, and I’m just trying to help, to do something nice,’ she said, lingering over the last word. A strand of hair had escaped from her purple hat and whipped across her face, and she pushed it back with a swipe of her hand.
‘And there’s nothing in it for you, oh no,’ Joe said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Just being nice to someone you’ve never met and don’t know the first thing about.’
‘I liked her,’ Clara said, her voice growing quiet, her fists unclenching. For a second Joe thought she might start crying. She didn’t seem the type but he couldn’t be absolutely sure. His voice softened a fraction.
‘I like her too,’ he said slowly. ‘Which is why I want to know why you’re here, what exactly you’re up to.’
‘Look, Joe, I don’t know what has happened in your life to make you quite so suspicious, but where I come from, we actually trust each other.’
He cut her off again, his hand on his chest, his voice getting louder. ‘In the land of pixies and elves, is it? Where you all prance about singing to the wind and unicorns float past rainbows in the sky?’
She couldn’t speak for a moment, watching him hop from foot to foot. ‘Denmark, actually.’
Feeling foolish, he stood stock still and took a breath. ‘Well, I don’t know why you’re not off being fabulously NICE to someone over there.’ He thought that was as good a place as any to leave things and with a nod set off past her, trying not to slip in his mud-soaked brogues. He picked up the pace, surprised by the beads of sweat breaking out on his hairline. Was he really this unfit? Fortunately she was such an ambler he would be able to get back to the shop in good time, find his phone, send an email and be out of her way before she had even left the field.
Nice, he scoffed to himself. He thought back to the expression on her face as he accused her: the sad eyes, the slightly wistful expression. For a brief moment he wondered whether she was telling the truth. Then he put his shoulders back and pushed on. No, his instinct must be right: no one was that nice.
Chapter 16
‘Yay, you came,’ Lauren said, opening the door. ‘And Rory is in bed and Patrick is working late, so…’ She waved the bottle of wine she had dangling by her side.
Clara was barely over the threshold when she began. ‘He’s a rend kusse,’ she announced, pulling off her purple hat and reaching down to unlace her boots. ‘A total and utter rend kusse.’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, who is a what? Isn’t that the really bad word? The one we only ever use in emergencies? Doesn’t it mean…’ Lauren whispered the translation, doing a pretty obscene mime at the same time.
Clara nodded. ‘It is an emergency; he is a complete kusse who thinks I’m out to steal his mother’s shop and take her flat and plunder it for jewellery and gold and’ – she followed Lauren into the kitchen, accepting a glass of wine that she instantly started waving around – ‘probably kidnap her animals and, and…’
‘And breathe,’ Lauren laughed. ‘Look, let’s not wake Rory with your deranged Danish outburst; let’s go into the conservatory.’ She pointed over her shoulder and grabbed a couple of blankets on her way past.
Lauren settled herself on a threadbare sofa, throwing a blanket over her legs and inviting Clara to join her. They huddled under the tartan blankets, Clara’s wine wobbling as she began.
‘He thinks I’m just this, what’s the word, con, con, you know, a con kunstner.’
‘Jeez, woman, your language.’ Lauren had started giggling, lightly shaking to Clara’s left.
‘No, you know, a con…’ Clara was waving her wine around, ‘CON ARTIST,’ she practically screamed as she remembered the English translation. ‘And that I’m here with some devious motive when in fact I just thought it would be a nice thing to do.’ She stressed the last few words, sinking deeper into the sofa as she finished, collapsing into the cushions, all the anger out now, spent.
‘Well,’ Lauren said, taking a slow sip of her own wine, ‘I’m glad we cleared that up.’ She looked sideways at Clara. ‘So who are we talking about and what has happened exactly?’ Her mouth was twitching as if she was trying to stop a smile. It made Clara relax for the first time in a while.
Clara rested her head back on the cushions. ‘Let’s just drink wine and sit here and look at the night sky,’ she said, realising that through the conservatory glass the whole sky was filled with clusters of stars. ‘Beautiful,’ she breathed, feeling the wine warm her insides and her body relax as she gazed. A star shot across the sky, as if personally sent to cheer her up.
‘Right.’ Lauren clapped, reaching to fill up Clara’s glass. ‘That’s enough astronomical appreciation. I need the quick version and I need it now.’
‘Fine,’ Clara said, taking a sip. ‘So Joe came to the shop at the end of the day and essentially accused me of wanting to stay in the village to rob his mother of her livelihood.’
‘He said that?’ Lauren said, mouth falling open.
Clara thought for a moment about their exchange. ‘Basically, yes.’
‘Wow.’ Lauren took a gulp of wine. ‘That’s terrible.’
Clara nodded miserably.
‘What are you going to do?’ Lauren asked.
‘I suppose I should leave,’ Clara sighed. ‘That’s what he wants.’
‘Do you want that?’
Clara thought about her plans for the shop and shook her head. ‘No, I want to stay. Not forever, but long enough that I can make a difference.’
‘Then you should stay – you can’t let him bully you out of there. Louisa trusted you to look after things and that’s what you’re doing. And wonderfully, I might add,’ Lauren said, putting a hand on Clara’s arm.
Clara couldn’t help a small smile. ‘So what am I going to do about him?’ She drank more wine; just picturing his face caused her to knock it back quicker.
‘Well, you’ve already hit him round the head and knocked him out.’
Clara shot a look at her.
Lauren shrugged. ‘It’s a small village; word gets around.’
‘Gavin told you,’ Clara accused her.
Lauren took another sip of wine. ‘Yup, Gavin totally told me. I liked the bit about the fairy lights, by the way. So your next move could be… um… to hospitalise him?’
‘Lauren,’ Clara whined, ‘I’m serious: I need your help.’
Lauren nodded, a solemn expression on her face. ‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m going to help. OK,’ she said, after a momentary pause, ‘you could have it out with him right now. In the flat?’
‘He’s not in the flat. He’s staying in the pub.’
Lauren’s forehead creased. ‘In the pub, while you’re staying in his mum’s place, which has two bedrooms. Weird.’
‘He refused to stay,’ Clara admitted. ‘I had just whacked him in the face with a horse’s head.’
‘Fair point. OK, scrap that idea, we need to be cleverer anyway.’ Seconds later, Lauren sat up poker straight, spilling drops of wine on the blanket. ‘Ooh, I’ve got it.’
‘You have?’ Clara said, dabbing at the wine.
Lauren looked at her, nodding furiously. ‘You should play it the other way. Don’t have it out with him at all. Get him on your side. Make him see first-hand that you’re not there for any deep, dark reason. Charm him! Woooooo him,’ she said, accentuating the word.
‘Woo?’
‘Court! Seduce!’
‘How can I? He is completely convinced I am about to make off with the takings.’
‘Invite him to move in and make him see you’re a force for good not evil.’
‘I could, I suppose�
�’ Clara turned the stem of the wine glass around. ‘I’m just not sure he would want to, and I’m definitely not sure he has it in him to be nice and understanding.’
Lauren nodded. ‘Louisa told me he is a bit hard. Always working, always on the move, never just chills.’ Her eyes lit up as she spoke. ‘Oh that’s BETTER,’ she said, warming to her theme. ‘Look. You need him to see that life isn’t all City deals and stress and profit and money. You’re all about this hygge stuff, right?’ She pronounced it huegaaaaaah. ‘You’ve transformed the shop and the flat; Gavin told me it looks like a centrepiece in a home improvement magazine…’
She paused to look at Clara encouragingly, and Clara nodded slowly, not sure where she was headed with all this.
‘Well, you should transform him! Hygge him! You’ve done wonders with the shop and the flat already, so just think what you might achieve with an actual live person!’
Clara had already started shaking her head. ‘No, no, that’s impossible. You can’t hygge someone who doesn’t want to be hygged.’ She knew this wasn’t a word, but Lauren wouldn’t have a clue.
‘You don’t tell him!’ Lauren practically smacked her forehead with her palm. ‘You just set about changing him, chilling him out, softening him, showing him the hygge life,’ she said, her eyes sparkling, the wine now mostly on the blanket rather than in her glass.
Clara paused, about to protest again, but then she thought about it. He was certainly very stressed. She knew what that was like. She thought back to a time in her past when she had needed to make a change. When she had been dressed in designer suits and sky-high heels, blisters on her feet as she clacked over marble floors. Another meeting to attend, a conference call to get to, another client to call. The anxiety as she pushed the button for her floor in the lift, feeling the steel box closing in on her; fears that she wasn’t good enough, despite the work, despite the hours. But wasn’t Joe right in the middle of all that, unable to embrace a change? Could she really show him there was another way?
‘Right, let’s open another bottle and draw up more specific plans,’ Lauren said, weaving out of the room, glass in hand. ‘I’ll fetch Rory’s easel; this shit just got serious.’
A couple of hours later and Clara was floating back to the flat, various thoughts coming together in her wine-addled mind. Before she went to see Joe, she knew she had some work to do. She let herself into the flat, ignoring Lady CaCa’s call of ‘NICE TO SEE YOU, TO SEE YOU NICE, SHITHEAD,’ and started sourcing what she needed from various cupboards. Phase One: Operation Make Joe’s Room Look Super-Hygge.
She set about transforming the place, tidying and cleaning his room into a Zen-like haven. She smoothed out the fresh linen on the double bed, plumped his cushions, draped a large faux-fur blanket over the duvet and snuck a hot-water bottle in between the sheets. She stopped for another drink but she knew she wasn’t finished. She placed a sheepskin rug in front of the old Victorian fireplace and swept the hearth, placing different-sized candles in the space. After a few more sips of wine she set about polishing every surface, the smell of beeswax lingering in the air. Veering unevenly across the room, she drew the charcoal-grey curtains, then fetched a couple of the lamps from her own room, placing one next to a battered cherry-red leather armchair in the corner by the window and the other beside the bed. She piled up a selection of books on the side table, poetry mostly, and stepped back to admire her work. It was ready. Operation How to Get Your Hygge On was a go. Now she just needed her specimen.
The wine fuzz was still helping as she made her way straight to the pub, arriving in a whirl of energy at the door of the bar. With her purple hat and her mismatched coat she was transported back for a moment to that first night, when she had seen Louisa arrive in such pomp. She felt as if she was channelling her.
‘Clara!’ Gavin called from behind the bar, his smile wide as he pulled a pint.
She made an unsteady line for him, bashing into a low stool and a customer on the way.
‘Oof, ow, sorry.’
‘Here to celebrate?’
Clara gave him a quizzical look.
‘The display,’ he laughed, ‘A triumph. The children are already trying to guess what you’re going to do next.’
Today’s display felt like many moons ago, and Clara blinked. ‘Of course. Display,’ she said.
Gavin stopped pulling on the lever and leaned over to her. ‘Everything all right?’
Clara nodded, her eyesight marginally blurry. ‘All’s OK,’ she said, wondering if she was slurring, ‘Jusht here to see Joe.’
‘Wait,’ Gavin said, moving down the bar towards her. ‘I forgot. I sent a picture of the window to Louisa. She loved it. She said, “All I can see is children smiling and it’s made me whoop. Also KE is not a word” – oh, that last bit’s for me,’ he said, coughing over his embarrassment.
Louisa’s message was the nudge that Clara needed, her resolve hardening as she stepped around the bar and headed up the narrow stairs. She wanted to stay in the village and she needed things to be OK with Joe. She passed the forbidden door – a pause as she hovered outside. She could pop in, just briefly, before she saw Joe. There was a noise behind her and Gavin’s head suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs. ‘He’s straight ahead,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘Where you were. The only room,’ he added, watching as she moved on by.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Clara said, hopping as if she’d been prodded with a hot stick.
Her hand wavered in a fist over the door. She couldn’t get out of it now. She could hear Joe’s voice inside. Was he with someone? Silence. Perhaps she was a bit drunker than she’d thought.
She knocked. No reply. She knocked again, knowing that if she didn’t get this over with, she wouldn’t have the nerve.
The door opened wide in one swift movement, and Clara, who had been leaning heavily on it, stumbled into the room.
‘You,’ he said, stepping back as she careered in, no doubt fearing she was here to hit him with something wooden. She straightened up, holding both hands aloft in mock surrender as if to prove she hadn’t brought along any particular sharp or heavy toys to brain him with.
She was huffing as she spoke. ‘Needed to see you. Say sorry.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I came,’ she said, catching her breath, ‘to say I’m sorry.’
He had opened his mouth, looking ready to pounce. As the words left her, she saw his mouth snap shut, and then open again. ‘Oh.’ He raked a hand through his hair. He looked bizarre, she suddenly noticed. His shirt was ironed, collar stiff, tie poker straight but his trousers were rolled up to the knee as if he were about to go paddling, socks and mud-covered brogues abandoned by the bed. ‘Clara, that’s nice of you, but I’m right in the mi —’
She wasn’t listening, didn’t follow where his arm was pointing, just wanted to get the words out.
‘I came to ask if you’d consider starting over, if you would come and stay in the flat. I don’t like the thought of you being here while I’m there, and maybe we can decide what to do next.’
She watched Joe look back at the tiny bed under the eaves, and imagined him bent almost double when he lay down to sleep. He seemed to be talking to the bed. It was odd. ‘I’m sorry about this. I won’t be long.’
