The Distance

by Zoë Folbigg

  She closes the magazine on a TV actress’s winter wonderland wedding and gathers her shopping bags ready to board. She takes a deep breath and exhales with a peculiar smile. The couple in the Karrimor coats look irked because they have to let her pass again. She senses their frustration, but for once she doesn’t apologise. It doesn’t bother her. She is so focused on what she needs to do she doesn’t care. She knows that she will get off at St Pancras and get the Circle Line to Liverpool Street. She’ll make the last train home to Claresham. She will put her keys in the bowl on the telephone table and she will climb the stairs in the silent house and get ready for bed. As she closes her eyes she knows it will be the last time she looks at George’s white, moley back and spindly spine and she will fall asleep. Tired but resolute. In the morning she will ask George to move out, and, as she rises to board the train, she knows she will be OK.

  Fifty-Four

  January 2019, Paris, France

  Cecilie stares at a black curved rectangle floating above a red curved rectangle, framed in oil the shade of heartache. Her grey feather-down coat is slung over her bag in the warmth of the gallery, her jumper sleeves rolled up. She feels as solemn and as tragic as the artist must have intended. The room is crowded, but people come and go, buzzing and blurring around static Cecilie as if they’re in fast motion. Still she stares, seeing depths of black and red emerge from the wall in front of her. Jumping out and screaming at her. The painting is a thing of frightening beauty and she can’t take her eyes off it. She stands anchored, fixated, waiting to see what else emerges from the picture. Surprised that it hasn’t taken her away to another place. Wondering if perhaps she has lost the ability to.

  A schoolgirl knocks into Cecilie and doesn’t say sorry as she rushes past the picture to catch up with her friends. Cecilie’s left knee bends and jerks with force and she has to straighten herself sharply to prevent herself falling over. The painting’s spell is broken.

  Cecilie looks into her bag obscured by her slung coat and fumbles for her Paris guidebook.

  Where next?

  She ponders the map and decides to walk through the 2nd and the 9th arrondissements to the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur, to really earn the baguette she hopes to find in a Bohemian cafe there. The air will do her good after three hours in the Pompidou.

  I can’t feel any lonelier than I already do.

  As Cecilie slowly and gently makes her way out of Salle 29, she doesn’t see Hector Herrera enter the room from the opposite corner behind her, ready to be struck by the painting Cecilie was just mesmerised by.

  Hector doesn’t notice the girl with the short white-blonde hair swept across her sad face, leaving the room. Just like he didn’t see her at the top of the escalator when he was at the bottom, gazing through the Perspex tunnel out to the rising vista of Paris, wondering how on earth he could convince Cecilie Wiig to hear him out; whether he should take a chance on Arctic Norway, or stop being crazy and just get his flight back to Mexico.

  Fifty-Five

  January 2019, Tromsø, Norway

  A woman resembling a woollen Womble ambles into the Hjornekafé, blinded by snow and steam. She is followed by her faithful and abiding husband.

  ‘Uff!’ announces Gjertrud with a chuckle as she starts to unravel the layers that reveal her ruddy face. ‘That wind is biting!’

  Cecilie looks to the door and smiles as she tucks her pen behind her ear, pinning her hair into place as she does. She looks back at the family of four from Norway, but not from this way, and tells them that their soup will take just a minute.

  The mother at the table nods and smiles and remembers to ask for more bread for her ravenous teenage son.

  ‘Sure,’ smiles Cecilie. ‘Anyone else want extra bread? Or we have these tasty cheesy pinwheels on the counter you might like, they go brilliantly with the broccoli soup.’

  The mother cranes her neck and widens her eyes.

  ‘I’m OK,’ says the husband, not looking up from his guidebook.

  ‘I’ll have one please,’ says the excited teen daughter.

  ‘Just bread,’ grunts her brother.

  ‘Two pinwheels,’ says the mother as she smiles at her daughter opposite and licks her lips.

  ‘Of course.’

  The family wouldn’t know it from her serene face, but Cecilie is somewhat flummoxed inside. All holiday season it’s been hard to predict whether the Hjornekafé would be heaving, or whether it would be empty. Some days Cecilie was able to sit down and chat for hours to Grethe while bouncing baby Ahyana on her knee, others she was rushed off her feet with tourists spending their Christmas in search of the Northern Lights. Luckily Cecilie was able to call upon Stine to cover her for that ridiculous little jaunt to Paris, and Henrik is back from spending the New Year in Swedish Lapland and is in the kitchen, keeping an eye on the soup. Cecilie is busy juggling bowls, plates, cups and menus, but it’s all a welcome distraction.

  She nods towards Gjertrud and Ole’s usual table at the end, to indicate to take a seat, even though they were already shuffling towards it. A man in a suit eats fish pie at a small table against the smaller window that looks out onto to the side street that leads down to the port; honeymooners from Australia lace their fingers together at the table along from him.

  Ole takes off his woolly hat but doesn’t fluff up his matted hair. He has a twinkle in his currant-sized eyes.

  ‘How was Paris?’ asks Gjertrud excitedly as she peels off each layer from her round frame and places it on the wooden chair next to hers in the corner. It’s an elaborate performance.

  They knew I went?

  ‘Let me just take that couple’s order, I’ll be one second,’ says Cecilie, grateful to buy herself some time.

  She goes over to the Australians. They want what the man in the suit is having.

  ‘Fish pie?’ says Cecilie. Her smile makes her cheekbones rise but doesn’t reach her eyes.

  ‘Yes, two of those please, and two cups of coffee,’ says the husband, twisting his new wedding ring around his finger proudly, awkwardly, not yet used to wearing it.

  ‘And two glasses of tap water,’ says his wife, without taking her eyes off her husband.

  ‘Won’t be long,’ says Cecilie, nodding and walking back to the kitchen to give Henrik the order. She returns to the front and wipes down Gjertrud and Ole’s table, aware that their expectant eyes are following her every move. ‘Oh, Paris was OK,’ Cecilie shrugs, as she pushes the last of the cake crumbs onto the floor.

  ‘Just OK?’ a shocked Ole says. ‘Paris is the greatest city in the world!’

  Paris didn’t feel like the greatest city in the world to Cecilie, but she doesn’t want to disappoint such nice people. She stops wiping the table and looks up, reassurance pouring from sad green eyes.

  ‘It was beautiful. I had a wonderful time. I walked and walked.’

  ‘Well, if those boots didn’t have holes in before…’ laughs Gjertrud, looking down at Cecilie’s DMs with more affection than Karin has for them.

  ‘Luckily they’re sturdy. Got me around all the galleries I wanted to see.’

  ‘And your friend?’ asks Ole, expectantly, tiny eyes widening.

  Gjertrud hits Ole with her glove and calls him a silly man under her breath, but it’s Cecilie who feels winded.

  She knows.

  ‘I had a wonderful time,’ Cecilie repeats with a wan smile. ‘I’ll be right back to take your order.’

  One pot of tea. One coffee. One slice of cake. Two forks. And another slice of cake in ten minutes’ time.

  ‘I’m just going to help Henrik…’

  Henrik walks out of the kitchen with the bread and pinwheels for the family, ruining Cecilie’s excuse for taking cover.

  Gjertrud changes the subject. ‘Ah…’ she laughs, looking up at the chalkboard next to the counter. ‘Broccoli today, Henrik?’

  ‘Ja, broccoli,’ he nods, while he places the extra bread and warmed cheesy pinwheels in front of the family.

 
On the other side of the glass façade, in the biting wind and sideways snow, Grethe walks along the path, past the length of the window as she approaches the cafe, Ahyana strapped to her chest. In each hand she carries boxes of cakes made by her mother, carefully balanced as if her baby is the centre of the scales; the centre of her universe. Grethe looks down at black eyelashes, downcast over sleeping eyes but still peeping out from under a knitted hat, and she smiles at her daughter, whose arms jolt as Grethe brushes into the arm of a man on the pavement.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ says a voice from a faraway land. Yet another tourist who was looking up at the sky and not where he was going. The man steps into the road to let Grethe past.

  ‘Tak,’ she says forgivingly and nods. His eyes are comfortingly familiar.

  ‘You want help with those?’ the man gestures to the boxes. Grethe does look weighed down, by the boxes, by her baby, by the swathes of fabric under her multi-coloured woollen coat.

  ‘No, I’m fine thanks, this is me,’ she gestures to the other side of the glass. The man walks off and Grethe lets another flurry of snow and wind into the cafe as she walks in.

  Henrik rushes to help take the weight of the boxes off her hands.

  ‘Ah!’ says Gjertrud with glee, her purple cheeks sprouting. ‘Baby girl let me near you!’

  Grethe hands Henrik the box in her right hand and puts the others on the counter. She looks down proudly at Ahyana, who was woken by the collision outside, and starts to unwrap her colourful woollen cocoon to show her off to Gjertrud and Ole, although Ole is more interested in the fresh delivery of cakes.

  ‘What have you got there Grethe?’ Ole asks.

  My daughter, obviously.

  Grethe has to think for a second.

  ‘Oh, the cake! Well…’

  Before Grethe has a chance to unwrap the cloth of her papoose, Gjertrud has lifted Ahyana out and is enchanting her awakening eyes with jolly cheeks of a colour Ahyana hasn’t seen before. They’re not like her mother’s cheeks, and they’re definitely not like her father’s, so she looks up at Gjertrud in wonder, her immense dark brown eyes and light brown ringlets poking out from under her hat.

  ‘Not so little now, are you?!’ Gjertrud coos. ‘Gosh, it must have been a couple of months since I saw her. Your mother says she’s on solids already, Grethe? Although, in our day, we waited a bit longer…’

  ‘Yes, she’s taken well to it. Pureed carrot is a winner so far.’

  Ole looks expectantly at Grethe, waiting for his answer.

  ‘Oh sorry, Ole, yes… There’s spiced cloudberry, elderberry, chocolate, oh and a new one – lemon, pistachio and polenta. Is Cecilie here?’

  ‘Yes, she’s in the kitchen,’ says Gjertrud authoritatively. Gjertrud makes it her place to know all of the goings on in the Hjornekafé.

  ‘Well, I need to tell her about that one. Mamma said it reminded her of Cecilie when she made it – all yellow and green.’

  Henrik laughs gently as he gets two coffees and two glasses of tap water for the couple by the side window.

  ‘I bet it’s as tasty as Cecilie too,’ says Ole, appreciatively. Gjertrud can’t hit her husband with Ahyana on her lap, but she scowls at him all the same.

  Grethe is keen to see her friend, so she walks out the back into the kitchen.

  A lone tourist walks through the door, stomping snow off his new hiking boots onto the coarse mat.

  Henrik looks up and smiles.

  ‘Wherever you like,’ he points to the three remaining tables. The man takes the smallest, by the door, at the start of the large window façade.

  ‘Hey,’ says Grethe, taking the cake boxes with her into the kitchen, where Cecilie stirs soup melancholically. Grethe puts the boxes on top of the fridge. ‘Mamma’s latest creation.’

  ‘Looks yummy,’ Cecilie says, without looking up.

  ‘It’s lemon, pistachio and polenta. Mamma says it’s inspired by you because it’s so beautiful, all kinds of Cecilie colours…’

  Cecilie tries to smile. She’s grateful for the kindness, but there’s a sadness stopping her.

  Grethe feels terrible. Terrible for her friend, terrible that she encouraged her to go.

  ‘You OK?’ she asks, empty sling still strapped to her chest, her head tilting to one side.

  Green eyes flash up filled with water as Cecilie ladles broccoli soup into four bowls.

  ‘I’ll be OK,’ she says with a blink that sends a tear tumbling.

  ‘I feel terrible.’

  ‘Don’t! You did what a good friend should. You told me to fight for something. To be adventurous. You said the right thing – I did the right thing by listening to you, by going to Paris.’ Cecilie puts the bowls onto a tray while Grethe watches. ‘And it wasn’t all shit. Just that… minor part.’ Cecilie can’t get the image of Hector walking off with another woman out of her head, but tries to raise a smile.

  Grethe nods. ‘Here, I’ll take those out front for you…’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll put the cakes in the fridge and on display. They look scrummy,’ Cecilie replies, trying harder.

  Grethe takes the tray with four bowls and four spoons out to the front of the cafe to the family at the table in the middle of the window while Cecilie lifts the plastic lids on the cake boxes and marvels at the creations within. Spicy, zingy Arctic cloudberry oozes wholesome golden zestiness; the purple bubbles of the elderberries almost sparkle in situ, and the bright green burst of the pistachio against lemon yellow sponge really do reflect the colours of Cecilie’s face.

  The Norwegian family tuck into the broccoli soup, bread and pinwheels, Grethe joins Gjertrud and Ole to check on Ahyana, and Henrik goes over to the man in snow boots sitting by the door. Henrik can tell that, like most of their customers, he’s not from round these parts.

  ‘What can I get you?’ Henrik asks, pushing his circular glasses back up his nose. ‘We have a fresh delivery of Miss Mette’s finest home-baked cakes…’ he says, uncharacteristically talkative but in his usual quiet tone.

  ‘Hmm, whichever cake you recommend, man, and I’ll have a coffee to warm me up,’ says the tourist, rubbing his hands together as if to ignite a fire.

  ‘OK, Arctic cloudberry is our signature cake. I’ll be right back.’

  Henrik takes the menu from the man and puts it back in the wooden menu holder at the end of the bar, then calls out to Cecilie.

  ‘A slice of cloudberry for table number 1.’

  ‘Sure,’ comes a voice from the kitchen.

  Gjertrud lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

  ‘Terrible news about Paris… Our cleaner works in housekeeping at the i-Scand and Espen told her…’

  Grethe frowns and internally curses Espen. ‘Some things aren’t meant to be,’ Grethe shrugs.

  ‘I always thought Cecilie was a lesbian,’ says Ole, holding his palms up in submission.

  ‘Oh shush, Ole!’ hisses Gjertrud, even more purple with embarrassment. She rocks Ahyana a bit faster in her arms. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Well you said it too!’

  Gjertrud laughs nervously and shakes her head.

  ‘Is she sleeping through the night yet…?’

  In the kitchen, Cecilie methodically slices up the cakes into squares, rectangles and triangles, depending on Mette’s way. A neat square for cloudberry, an elegant rectangle for elderberry, a triangular wedge for chocolate, and she’s not sure about the new lemon and pistachio one, so she cuts it into rectangles for now. A jigsaw of cake shapes on the stainless-steel counter of the kitchen remind Cecilie of the map of Paris she clutched to her heart for three days solid as she walked and walked. How her heart crumpled like the creased map when she saw Hector Herrera walking off with his arm around another woman, only seconds after seeing how beautiful he was in the flesh. Crumpled, sunken, embarrassed. Cake arrondissements remind Cecilie of how awful it felt there and how awful it feels now – and how mortifying it is when she has to tell people that her impromptu trip to Paris wa
sn’t the success she’d hoped for.

  As Cecilie ambled along boulevards, heartbroken and alone, she dreamed up scenarios she might be able to tell people back home, so as not to disappoint them. Not lies as such, just imaginings, that kept her whimsical mind company and enabled her a little escapism from her dismal reality.

  There was the scenario where Hector had swept her off her feet under the Eiffel Tower, leaning Cecilie back for a sweeping kiss, before he took her off to a downbeat but oh-so Bohemian artist’s apartment in the Marais to make love to her before whisking her back to Mexico.

  There was the scenario where Hector didn’t turn up at all, but it didn’t matter because Cecilie had already fallen in love at first sight with a mime artist in the Tuileries, just on eye contact and hand signals alone.

  And then there was the scenario where Cecilie had got to Paris, but decided not to go to the Eiffel Tower. She would tell people she didn’t want her happiness and her existence to be quantified by a man, so she chose not to meet Hector. She was a strong independent woman who loves her own company thankyouverymuch, so she busied herself walking through the galleries, along the Seine, across its bridges. Trouble is, as dreamy as Cecilie is, she always snaps back to reality. Her eyes might glaze over and her mind wanders off, but her heart is anchored in truth. She couldn’t lie, even if she wanted to.

  At least Cecilie only told a few people she was going to Paris, that’s a consolation. There was Grethe, of course. Then Stine and Mette at the cafe while Henrik was away, Fredrik at the library, and her mother, Espen and Morten. She didn’t really have anyone else to tell, so it’s probably best Cecilie doesn’t know that the cleaners and the housekeepers of Tromsø know that her trip has ended in heartache; that her fantasy boyfriend ran off with someone else.

  But it wasn’t all misery. After seeing Hector Herrera walk away into the crowd, Cecilie embraced her fledgling, independent woman and blocked Hector from her phone. Again. For good this time. She had made the bravest, boldest move of her life, to go to another country, by herself, and had been made a mockery of. So she had to make the best of it and throw herself into Rothko, Braque and Picasso at the Pompidou; croissants and coffee in the cafes of Montmartre. It was a beautiful place in which to cry.