Erotic Refugees

by Paddy Kelly

  He called him as he wandered down Stora Nygatan on his way to the water's edge. Hopefully he could find a place there to sit and absorb the summer sun before the clouds massed to consume it again.

  The mobile rang six times before it was answered. “Hi Rob, it's—”

  “Eoin!” Rob said excitedly. “I was just goin' to call ye this minute! I worked it out, man! I know who nicked the idea and gave it to Diamond Date!”

  “What?” Eoin said, shifting the mobile to the other ear. “You do? Well who was it then?”

  “Well,” Rob said, “it was really weird! I was just reading the paper and they had an article about Internet dating, so I thought, right, interesting, maybe relevant, yeah? And they were talking to the guys who started Diamond Date and—”

  “Come on Rob, who was it?”

  “Wait, I'm gettin' there! So I'm reading this and lookin' at their names, and one of the surnames is Jemte. That sticks out cos it’s unusual, and then it hits me that I know another person called Jemte. I remember she said her brother was involved in a few online things, and I put it together—”

  “Jesus Rob, who is it? Who told them?”

  “Bloody Kajsa,” Rob said.

  Eoin slowed his pace and pressed the mobile to his head. “Kajsa? You mean that girl you used to see?”

  “Yeah. We didn't break up so well, and I guess she thought, just to show me a thing or too…”

  Eoin swung his head back and groaned loudly. People passing by quickened their pace, trying not to catch his eye. He pressed the phone back to his ear.

  “So let me get this straight. You tell her our idea, you dump her horribly, and then she tells her brother so he can steal it? Jesus Rob, why didn't you just give her the keys to your flat and a bag of shit to smear on your furniture? I mean, bloody hell, what a balls-up!”

  “Well at least now we know,” Rob said. “But what the hell do we do about it? Wasted all our hard work, didn't she?”

  Eoin came to the water's edge, where it seemed every teenager in Stockholm had gathered to enjoy the sunshine. They lounged about on the wooden walkway like cigarette-smoking seals. He found a vacant place by the water and claimed it quickly, stretching out his legs in relief.

  “Well,” he said to Rob. “Unless you're talking about hiring a hit man, I don't think there's much we can do. Even if she did it, you'll probably never be able to prove it. We can't sue them, and we can't even prove we had the idea first, can we?”

  There were a few moments of silence before Rob spoke.

  “You think?”

  “Yes Rob, I do think. We’ll have to let it go. I guess Kajsa got her revenge on you, didn’t she? She won and you completely lost.

  “Or rather, we all did.”

  Chapter 24

  Rob tapped his fingers on the plastic window ledge as he studied the scenery sliding past outside the train. It wasn't terribly exciting, as it was just the outskirts of a city. But it was a city he'd never been to before, in a country he'd never been to either, so that made it at least noteworthy.

  He continued to stare, as it was really too early to do much else. He'd taken the night train from Stockholm and had spent eight hours being bounced around on an uncomfortable bed in a room he'd shared with five professional snorers. Actual sleep hadn't been part of the deal. The day was bright and cheery but Rob didn’t count on being either of those things for quite a few hours yet, or possibly not until tomorrow.

  The train finally slid to a halt in Copenhagen’s central station, which was pretty dead at this time of the morning. Rob swung his bag onto his shoulder and stumbled out of the train where he paused for air. The air displeased him so he lit a cigarette and added some smoke to it, and that made him feel a bit better. He slid onto a bench, pulled out his mobile and stared at Karen’s number.

  It was really early, but maybe that might be a good time to catch her. She was at least sure to be at home, right? Unless, he added with a mental frown, she was in somebody else’s home, which was less good. But her mobile would anyway be there. Karen and her whole generation never seemed to turn off their mobiles at all and used them as alarm clocks, calendars, notebooks and, if Eamonn could be believed (which was doubtful) even occasionally as vibrators.

  He pressed the dial button and slipped his foot through the strap of his bag with a shifty glance around. As the call connected he leaned back on the bench and yawned so hard that his eyes watered.

  “Bro?” came a drowsy voice after a few rings. “What happened?”

  Rob winced. Of course, she'd assume something bad had happened when a relative called early in the morning. That was stupid of him.

  “Nothing, it's all fine. All's well.”

  “Oh,” she said dreamily. “Alright then. Mad. Look, I just started on the new stuff for the site, if you're in a big hurry then I can have it over—“

  “No rush with that. But listen, guess where I am. Go on now, have a guess.”

  From the fumbling and grunting on the other side Rob assumed that she was getting out of bed and putting something on. Socks? A bathrobe? Or maybe a bunny outfit for the seedy strip club where all the naïve country girls ended up?

  “Um,” she said, and cracked a yawn of her own. “At early mass maybe? I don't know, it's not a good time for the quiz and all.”

  “I'm in Copenhagen,” he said with a grin. “Heard it was nice this time of year. And it is too, right?”

  Karen didn't say anything. There came the sound of running water and then a click that was either somebody pressing the power switch on a kettle, or somebody cocking a pistol. Rob sucked on his cigarette as a few more moments of silence passed.

  “Look,” Karen said. “I'm not going anywhere with you, alright? I'm fine here, and if the mother wants you—”

  “Oh shite Karen, it's not the mother, is it? She's no clue I'm here. It's just, if we have to go and identify yer body at some stage in the future, I can just see the slappin' around the head I'll get, and the whole 'why did you believe her Rob? Why?' and then all the wailing. I just can't stand that bloody wailing. I just want to see that yer fine—”

  “But I am fine—”

  “Sure ye'd say that. But I just want to confirm, for my own peace of mind, that yer not living with crack addicts in a corner of an underground car park! Because if I'm telling the mother all's well I want to be sure I'm not lying through my teeth. Not all of them anyway.”

  “Rob, I can actually take care of myself—”

  “And when I see that with my own eyes I'll leave ye be. But not before.”

  There came a few more sounds from Karen's end of the call. First a kitchen-ish banging and scraping, and finally a slurping sound that caused Rob's stomach to churn and reminded him he’d had no breakfast.

  “I can come to yer flat, just tell me where—”

  “No, I'll meet you out, not in the flat.”

  “Why?” Rob said, frowning with suspicion. “It is a drug den, isn't it? With guns and bodies stashed everywhere?”

  “Um, no bro, it's just a mess, haven't done the dishes in like a week.”

  “Fine, just pick a place that's easy for me to find. And when I say easy, I mean like Eiffel Tower easy. I'm not in the best shape for talking to people and gettin' directions.”

  “Front gate of the Tivoli, the big carnival smack in the middle of town. Even babies can show you the way. Although of course the babies will only speak Danish.”

  “Right, see you there at ten. Gives me time to get some tea. I'm assumin' there is tea to be had in this country?”

  “Yeah bro, no problem on the tea. Go wake yourself up a bit, and see you there. I'll be the girl with the pirate tattoos and the parrot.”

  Rob blinked. “What—”

  “Later!” And she hung up.

  Karen didn't have any tattoos, although Rob noticed her hair was longer and sleeker than he remembered and her clothes had taken a definite slide in the black-is-best direction. Those high stompy boots didn't seem very w
ell adapted to summer mornings either. But thankfully there was no parrot in sight.

  “What's all this?” he said with a scowl.

  “It's clothes, bro. Nice to see you too.”

  Rob leaned over and gave her a hug, which was a new thing for them. But people in Sweden hugged each other constantly and now he figured it was just what you did when you met family members. There was a new scent coming from her, something dark and spicy and troubling.

  When the hug was done, he released his sister and studied her again. Something had changed about her, something very basic. She was no longer the annoying and distracted teenager with the few strips of multicoloured ribbon sewn rebelliously onto the hem of her school-uniform skirt. Now she was some confusing woman-thing with wild green eyes that blazed out of her pale Irish face, all framed by that sea of mad black hair.

  Rob began to understand how she could be seen, by some people at least, to be—and he could barely bring himself to think the word—attractive. And not just in a motherly “yes of course you're beautiful dear” kind of way, but actually attractive, good looking, a true object of desire, with cars slowing to a crawl as they passed and the wind ruffling her hair and birds landing on her shoulders singing and everything.

  Rob realised he wanted a cigarette, and bad. He waved a hand accusingly across her torso. “So this is …”

  She looked down and up again. “Well it's goth, obviously. I did wear this back home, you know, just not on an average day around town. And never in the house. It's not exactly easy to get away with looking like this back in the arsehole of Ireland. And the mother would probably have tried to bring in an exorcist.”

  “Goth,” Rob repeated, feeling about a hundred and fifty years old.

  Karen flicked some hair out of her face, revealing an earring high on her left ear, something that was definitely a new addition. She caught Rob frowning at that and shook her head.

  “Alright Rob, just take a picture, it'll last longer. Come on, we'll go get something to eat, they have nice pastries in a place close to here. You can frown at me some more when we get there.”

  She led them across a few streets and around a few corners. Rob studied at the buildings as they passed. They were all impressive and old-fashioned, like the more tasteful bits of Stockholm copied and pasted until they covered half the city. People passed them by at a relaxed pace, and the women he spotted were tall and striking with excellent teeth. Rob gave the whole thing a mental thumbs-up. This city was officially fine by him.

  Karen led the way through an unmarked door, down a few stone steps and into a warm room illuminated by horizontal slit windows and a few fat candles. There were a dozen customers, most sitting by themselves.

  “This is a café?” Rob said, viewing the bare walls with suspicion.

  “Sure is. Just sit down, I'll fix everything.”

  He settled at a battered table and watched as his sister strolled confidentially up to the counter and proceeded to chat in English to the scary-looking guy who stood behind it. They seemed to know each other fairly well, Rob noted with narrow-eyed disapproval. After sharing a few laughs with Scary Dane, Karen returned with a tray containing two mugs of black coffee and a pair of fat swirly pastries sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. She placed the lot on the table and sat herself down.

  Rob couldn't help noticing she hadn't actually paid for any of it. He glanced at the guy behind the counter and then back at his sister and finally down at his unpaid-for breakfast. He shrugged and took a swig of the coffee, happy that it was tasty and very strong.

  “So,” he said. “Why Copenhagen?”

  “Just a guy I met,” Karen said in a nonplussed way as she spooned sugar into her coffee. “You know, online.”

  Rob hadn't really expected her to say anything else, but felt that he should at least pretend to be a bit surprised. “A guy?” he gushed. “Online? Some strange dude you never—”

  “No, not a 'dude' Rob, a nice guy. A guy I'd been chatting to for like a year. And seriously, who says 'dude' these days? I mean, come on, we're in, like, the second millennium, you know?”

  “And I suppose the mother doesn’t know about him?”

  Karen glared at him through a curtain of black hair. “Are you serious Rob? As far as she's concerned, everyone on the Internet's either a kiddie fiddler or a serial killer. And she thinks I'm with you, remember?”

  “Sure, fine, but then why didn't you tell me where you really were? I mean—”

  “Because I thought if you knew, you’d tell her! Jeez Rob, use your brain.” Karen leaned back, swung her right foot up and planted it on her left knee. Her enormous fat-soled boot looked ridiculously out of place on the narrow limb. “Or she might find out somehow, she's good at that. Once she thought I was alright, and you knew I was alive, well, I figured why complicate things?”

  “Right, why complicate things by actually telling the truth. And that still leaves me the one doin' all the lying. Couldn't ye have worked on her for a bit, gotten her into the idea of it?”

  “Look.” She planted her foot on the ground again and leaned forward to glare at him. “I just couldn't stay there, could I, on the bloody farm. The mother was just going on and on, uni this and uni that, and I just didn't want any of it, you know how she is! Then she started going on about getting me a job, and she had been talking to some hairdressers in the town, and I'm thinking, right, that’s it, if I stay in this place and just cut hair and drink tea and gawp at farmers for the rest of my days I may as well just end it right there and then. That's not the future I want.”

  “So instead you picked up some dude on the web and moved in with him?”

  “I'm not stupid Rob! I can actually look after myself, you know, and Preben's a great guy. I'm alive, I have a place to stay and food to eat and a job to go to—”

  “A job?” Rob said, and narrowed his eyes. “What job?”

  “In a bar. Mostly waitressing, some pulling drinks, and I'm convincing the owner to let me fix up his website. You should see it, the thing's about fifteen feet long and it hasn't been updated since animated gifs were the height of fashion—”

  “Okay, fine. But this dude, guy, whatever, I won't be leaving until I've met him. I won't be taking your word for everything.”

  Karen stuffed a big chunk of pastry into her mouth and spoke around it. “Sure you'll meet him bro. We'll both see him later. In fact you'll be spending the evening with him since I'm going to work at four. And tomorrow I’ll show you around, and you can buy me a birthday present, since I turned twenty last month and you missed it. How's that sound?”

  “So you're the one working, and I buy you a present? Sounds fair.”

  She grinned. “I know. Doesn't it?”

  Rob stared at Preben, trying hard to find something to get riled up about. But it was slim pickings indeed—the man was just very pleasant. He was undoubtedly a man too, not many years younger than Rob, but with longer limbs, bigger muscles and a toothier smile. Not even the marks of several old earrings in his left ear, or his daft unsymmetrical haircut, or even the tattoo just visible on his right arm when his sleeve shifted was cause for concern. It was quite annoying really.

  “I'm a student,” he said. “Interactive design.”

  “He's been helping me with the layout ideas for your sites,” Karen said as she waved a cigarette about and ignored Rob's searing gaze. “Although I'm in charge of that whole thing at this end, just so you know.”

  “And it is good practise for us,” Preben said. “With your project changing every ten minutes, just like in the real world. The new idea I like, but also some of the old ones you sent to Karen. Some were stupid, but some were good.”

  Rob nodded and grinned. “Refreshing honesty. I like a guy who’s not afraid to call a spade a piece of shit.”

  They were sitting in a small square that contained a few benches and a tiny fish-shaped fountain that dribbled water out of its stone mouth. Karen smiled as she swung her foot to shoo away a cheeky p
igeon that was coming too close.

  “Well he's right, some of your ideas were rubbish.”

  “And some,” Preben repeated, “were not bad.”

  “Well, now ye've hurt my feelings Preben. And you'll probably have to take me to a bar later and buy me Guinness to make up for it.”

  Preben stretched out his long legs. “I'm sure it can be done. Perhaps I throw in some peanuts too.”

  “Sounds fair. Although I might add it wasn't our fault we were switchin' projects all the time. We did get the last one nicked, ye know.”

  “Oh yeah,” Karen said. “What happened there exactly?”

  Rob told her, and she nodded. “So Kajsa handed somebody else your idea just to spite you? It was good revenge though, wasn't it? Shows a certain style.”

  “I suppose,” Rob said, not really in the mood to think about Kajsa. “But let me finish what I came here to say. I don't want to be one takin' the blame from the Mother about this. So you'll have to tell her.”

  “Sure Rob, I'll tell her, alright?” She blew out a thin plume of smoke. “In two months or so.”

  Rob shook his head. “No way. One month, or I'll tell her myself.”

  “Okay then, six weeks,” Karen said. “Two weeks extra as payment for tarting up this site of yours.”

  Rob sighed. “Alright, whatever, six weeks. Just mail me what I'm supposed to be lying about, alright? What you’re supposed to be doing in Stockholm, where ye work and so on. Just so I don't accidentally fuck things up.”

  “Deal,” Karen said. “And now you're going to tell me how you found me. I was sure I'd covered my tracks, wasn't I Preben? Come on bro, tell me, how did you track me down?”

  “Maybe later,” Rob said slyly. “After you've told the mother, yeah?”

  Karen grumbled as she stubbed out her cigarette under a big black boot. “Okay, fine. Come on then, I suppose I'd better show you the flat. Preben cleaned it up a bit. I hope.”

  “Well I hid the heroin gear, if that's what you mean.”

  “Preben’s so lovely when he makes crap jokes. Right, let's get moving. We've got time to show you some of the town before I start work. But, just so you know, the flat is small so you'll be sleeping on a mattress in the kitchen. Assuming the rats are okay with it.”