Hygge and Kisses

by Clara Christensen

  She deleted the emails from her inbox without opening them. Whatever they were offering would be of little interest to her here, in this remote, rain-soaked seaside resort.

  She was about to check Facebook when a text from Hayley flashed up.

  Hi Bo, good to hear from you. It’s all kicked off since you left – are you sitting down?

  Bo felt a lurch of apprehension. She could hear the glee behind Hayley’s words, and had a sudden vision of the view from her old desk, of Hayley’s eager face grinning at her across the blue divider, about to impart her latest snippet of gossip.

  As a matter of fact, I am. What’s happened? Bo replied.

  Bo stared at the crackling orange logs in the stove, trying to steady the fluttering sensation in her stomach, until a swooshing sound from her phone heralded the arrival of Hayley’s reply.

  Matt’s resigned, and been replaced by Ben. Didn’t see that coming!

  'Nope, nor did I,’ Bo muttered under her breath.

  Turns out I was wrong about Charlotte getting the chop, too. She’s taken over Ben’s accounts.

  Bo sighed and scrolled down the message with her thumb, wondering if Hayley was simply going to repeat the same news she had already heard from Ben, but her peripheral vision had glimpsed something further down the screen which made her stomach drop.

  AND, guess what? Hayley went on, the use of caps-lock eloquently conveying her excitement, THIS IS TOP SECRET! It wasn’t Ben who made a move on Charlotte in Milton Keynes, it was Matt!

  Bo stared at her screen in disbelief.

  No way! Bo typed. Who told you? she added, needing to hear corroboration before she could believe what she had read. ‘Come on, Hayley,’ Bo muttered under her breath, impatiently watching the three flashing dots on her screen while Hayley typed.

  Her phone swooshed.

  Charlotte told me herself! We went for lunch yesterday and she fessed up. The three of them were summoned to MK at short notice. Client throwing his toys out of the pram. They ended up getting pissed in the hotel bar. Ben went to get drinks and next thing Charlotte knew, Matt grabbed her leg under the table and tried to shove his tongue down her throat! Ben practically had to peel Matt off her! Talk about #awks

  Bo curled her legs up onto the chair and hugged her knees. Her heart was racing.

  Cringe! Poor Charlotte, she typed, feeling a flicker of sisterly compassion for her former colleague. There was so much she wanted to ask Hayley, but couldn’t risk typing something that might reveal the extent of her own involvement. She needed time to process what she had read so, rather than fish for more details, she signed off the text with a bland Gotta go. Missing you all x.

  She placed the phone on the curved arm of her chair and stared blankly at the flickering fire, vaguely aware of the sound of Simon’s typing drifting through the double doors. Why had Ben not told her the truth about what had happened in Milton Keynes when she confronted him about it? Had he been adhering to some blokeish code of honour which required him not to expose his boss as an office lothario? Whatever his reasons had been, she felt cross with Ben for allowing her to blunder into a mire of recrimination rather than tell her the truth. But none of that changed the fact she had wrongly accused him of cheating. On that score, she was undoubtedly in the wrong.

  With a long exhalation, Bo picked up her phone and composed a message to Ben, typing, deleting and retyping, before eventually settling on, I think I owe you an apology .

  *

  That evening, when the three of them were eating meatballs and spaghetti in the encircling glow of the pendant lamps, Florence made a renewed attempt to engage Simon in conversation.

  ‘So, Simon, I’d be happy to read whatever you’re working on, if you’d like a second opinion,’ she offered.

  Simon’s face twisted uncomfortably. ‘Thanks, but I don’t think so,’ he replied. Bo noticed the flicker of disappointment in Florence’s eyes, but Simon seemed oblivious.

  ‘So, do you live in London, Simon?’ Florence persevered. Simon blinked at her.

  ‘Yes. Streatham,’ he answered, twirling his fork in his spaghetti. There was a short pause, after which it seemed to occur to Simon that he ought to reciprocate. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Hove,’ Florence replied. ‘I grew up in Sheen, but moved down to Sussex after art college and have been there ever since.’ Then, with a slightly forced casualness, Florence said, ‘So, do you live on your own, Simon? Or with a—’ she was cut off by a sudden blast of freezing air which made the lights sway and the blinds rattle against the windows.

  Bo looked over her shoulder to see a man closing the front door behind him. He looked around thirty. Fair-haired, wearing a goose-down jacket, skinny jeans and metal-framed glasses, his appearance exhaled Danishness.

  ‘Hi, hi,’ he said deferentially, upon seeing three surprised faces staring at him from the dining table. ‘I’m Emil. I’m sorry to interrupt your meal,’ he apologised, in barely accented English.

  ‘No worries, babe. I’m Florence. Pleased to meet you,’ Florence said convivially, pushing back her chair and walking over to shake his hand. ‘You’ve come to stay, I take it?’ she asked, glancing at the small suitcase stood at his feet.

  ‘Yes, for a few days,’ Emil replied. ‘Pernille said it would be okay. Did she . . . er . . . tell you I was coming?’ he asked anxiously, stamping his wet boots on the doormat. There was something endearing, Bo thought, about his courteousness, and his eagerness not to intrude.

  ‘She didn’t mention it to me, but don’t worry,’ Florence reassured him, ‘The more the merrier, eh?’ she said chirpily, with a sidelong glance at Simon, whose demeanour was far from merry.

  Bo stood up and went over to the door, doing a mental inventory of the bedrooms along the upstairs landing, wondering with faint alarm if there were enough to accommodate another guest. She could imagine Simon’s appalled response if Florence broke the news that two of them would have to share.

  ‘Hi, I’m Bo,’ she said, offering her hand to the stranger.

  ‘Bo – that’s a Danish name, no?’ Emil said, turning to her with a smile, and she couldn’t help but notice he was rather attractive, in a typically Scandinavian way: his blond hair was cut short at the sides but longer on top, he had pale blue eyes and a light stubble across his jaw. His hand hadn’t yet adjusted to the warmth of the house, and his skin felt cool to the touch as she shook it.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied, noticing a glimmer of disappointment in his eyes. ‘It’s short for Boughay,’ she explained, as if that might somehow compensate for its lack of Danishness.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Boughay,’ Emil said, his blue eyes creasing at the corners. She smiled coyly and reflexively raised her free hand to smooth her hair.

  Aware that Simon had also come over and was hovering behind her, Bo dropped Emil’s hand and stepped sideways.

  ‘I’m Simon,’ Simon said gruffly, giving Emil’s hand a brisk shake.

  ‘Would you like something to eat, Emil?’ Florence asked, making for the kitchen. ‘There’s some spaghetti if you’re hungry.’

  Emil unzipped his puffy jacket and hung it on the bulging coat rack. ‘Thank you, it smells delicious,’ he said politely. It was only the rhythm of his speech, the inflection in slightly unexpected places, that gave away that English was not his mother tongue. Bo returned to her seat but watched out of the corner of her eye as he bent down to unlace his boots. He had the slim, long-limbed physique which, she had noted enviously, many Danes seemed blessed with.

  Relieved of his outer layers, Emil walked over and as he took the seat next to Simon, Bo thought she noticed a subtle shift in Simon’s body language; he leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. Bo had seen Ben assume the same pose many times, when he was trying to assert his superiority over male colleagues. Did Simon feel threatened by the appearance of a rival male? she wondered.

  ‘So, what brings you to Skagen, Emil?’ Bo asked, twirling her fork in her sp
aghetti. ‘Are you here to visit family?’

  ‘No, not exactly.’ Emil answered. ‘My mother died, two months ago.’ Bo’s fork froze on its way to her mouth.

  ‘Oh,’ she whispered, appalled.

  ‘She wanted to . . . I’ve brought her back to . . . um . . .’

  Bo felt paralysed with awkwardness, terrified Emil was about to tell them his mother’s coffin was outside. Out of the corner of her eye, Bo glimpsed Florence at the kitchen counter: she had been spooning meatballs into a bowl for Emil but seemed to have halted in mid-scoop. Even Simon looked aghast.

  Florence was the first to regain her composure. ‘Are you here to scatter her ashes?’ she volunteered, gently placing the bowl of spaghetti on the table in front of him.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Emil said, to everyone’s palpable relief.

  If ever there was a conversation killer, Bo discovered, it was finding out that your new houseguest had his mother’s ashes stored in his luggage. Simon fiddled with the cutlery on his empty plate, and the others concentrated hard on their food, relieved at having a pretext for not talking.

  ‘My family used to come to Skagen every summer, when I was a child,’ Emil explained, as if sensing their discomfort. ‘My parents rented a summerhouse like this one. Do you know Grenen?’ he asked, looking around the table.

  Simon and Bo looked at him blankly but Florence’s face flickered with recognition. ‘Just north of here, right?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Emil said. ‘It’s well known in Denmark.’

  He described a strip of sand at the northernmost tip of the country, where waves from the North Sea and the Baltic collide.

  ‘I’ve sketched the view there many times,’ Florence chipped in, ‘It’s beautiful.’

  Emil nodded. ‘That is where my mum wanted to have her ashes scattered. I might wait for the rain to stop first, though. Mum always hated rain.’

  He caught Bo’s eye across the table and smiled shyly. Bo smiled back, racking her brain for something appropriate to say, something that would sound tactful and supportive and . . . grown up. But nothing came to mind. Bo had never known anyone of her age who had experienced the loss of a parent, let alone a quietly attractive Danish man whom she had only met five minutes earlier. They had all finished eating, and the conversation seemed to have petered to a halt.

  Eventually, Emil stood up and went over to the rucksack which he had propped against the door. They all watched as he unzipped the bag and started rooting around inside. Oh please, thought Bo, please don’t show us your mother’s ashes. But, instead of a casket, Emil drew out a glass bottle full of bright yellow liquid.

  ‘Would anyone like some schnapps?’ he asked.

  At the table, there was an almost audible collective sigh of relief.

  ‘Now you’re talking, Emil,’ Florence said, rising from the table and moving across the kitchen to retrieve four shot glasses from a cupboard, while Bo and Simon cleared away the dirty plates. Emil removed the stopper from the bottle and placed it in the middle of the table.

  ‘It’s home-made, with juniper cones—’ he began.

  ‘Emil, babe, you had me at schnapps,’ Florence deadpanned, placing a hand on his shoulder as she set a shot glass down in front of him. Bo thought she saw Simon register the gesture with a peeved look.

  Emil filled the tiny shot glasses. ‘Skol,’ Emil toasted genially, holding his glass out to clink against the others’.

  ‘Skol,’ they repeated. Bo raised the glass to her lips. It smelt of pine but tasted pleasantly spicy and sweet, warming her throat as she swallowed it.

  ‘So what do you do, Emil?’ Florence asked genially.

  ‘I’m a chef. In Copenhagen.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say?’ she admonished him, with an exaggerated eye roll which belied the disinhibiting effect of the schnapps. ‘We’d have let you cook dinner, if we’d known.’

  Emil raised his hands in a gesture of humble apology. ‘I would be happy to. Tomorrow, perhaps?’

  Across the table, Bo noticed Simon’s eyes darting between Florence and Emil, and the thought flashed across her mind that he seemed a little put-out by the way the new arrival had become the focus of Florence’s attention. Perhaps Simon cared more about what Florence thought of him than he had let on.

  ‘Simon’s writing a novel set in Denmark,’ Bo said mischievously, curious to hear whether Simon would say any more about his work, under the influence of the schnapps.

  ‘Is that right?’ answered Emil, facing Simon with a look of curiosity.

  ‘Oh, he won’t tell you anything about it; it’s a secret,’ Florence drawled sarcastically, swigging back the last of her schnapps. ‘Scandi-Noir, I reckon. It must be really shocking,’ she teased. ‘Full of sexual violence and torture.’

  Simon frowned and shook his head, but seemed caught between annoyance and amusement. ‘It’s not like that at all,’ he said quietly, the merest trace of a smile hovering around his lips. Bo suspected he was secretly enjoying the attention.

  ‘Well then, why won’t you tell us anything about it?’ Florence persisted.

  ‘Unless –’ she gasped dramatically, her eyes widening, ‘unless, you’re not really writing anything at all, just pretending to. Typing out the same phrase over and over, like Jack Nicholson in that film – what’s that – what’s it . . .’ Florence clicked her fingers woozily.

  ‘The Shining?’ Bo suggested, watching Emil top up Florence’s glass. ‘That’s the one!’ Florence shrieked. ‘He pretends to be writing a book then goes crazy and tries to murder his wife.’

  Simon eyed her levelly across the table. ‘I am not like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. And I am writing a book.’ He fixed Florence with an intense stare. ‘But if I do decide to murder anyone,’ he said darkly, raising his shot glass to his lips, ‘you’ll be the first to know.’

  Florence narrowed her eyes, as if she had taken the comment as a gauntlet being thrown down. ‘I’m going to make it my mission,’ she intoned sombrely, ‘to make sure Simon does not spend all his time in Skagen working.’ Simon rolled his eyes and sipped his schnapps. ‘No complaints, Simon. It’s for your own good. In fact, I think we should start now. Who wants to play a game?’ she asked, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘I think a game is an excellent idea,’ Emil said convivially.

  Simon looked sceptical, as if he was wary of Florence’s motives. ‘It’s not Spin the Bottle, is it?’ he asked suspiciously.

  Bo giggled, but Florence gave him a prim look. ‘Of course not, Simon. What are we, fourteen? And before you ask, it’s not Truth or Dare either.’ Florence levered herself up from the table and walked a little unsteadily to the cupboard under the stairs.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find something wholesome and educational forus, Simon. I know you don’t approve of fun.’ Simon’s jaw was clenched but Bo thought she saw amusement in his eyes.

  Florence flung open the door to the cupboard beneath the stairs and began to rummage noisily through its contents. ‘It’s like a treasure trove of outdoor pursuits in here!’ she called from inside. A kite, cricket stumps and a tube of shuttlecocks flew out from behind the door and landed with a clatter on the floorboards, ‘Not much use for these in the pissing rain in November!’ she complained. More scraping and a muffled crash as something toppled over inside the cupboard. ‘Bollocks!’ Florence muttered.

  ‘Aha!’ she shouted at last. ‘This is just the thing.’ She shuffled out of the cupboard on her knees, a rectangular cardboard box tucked under her elbow. ‘The perfect game for being locked in a house with a writer who may or may not be a psychopath,’ she announced, getting to her feet unsteadily. ‘Scrabble!’

  Bo’s heart sank. In her experience, Scrabble was a game which inevitably outlasted the players’ enthusiasm by several hours, besides which she lacked both the mental dexterity and the patience to come up with high-scoring words. While Florence spread the board out in the middle of the dining table, Bo plugged her iPod
into the speaker dock on the kitchen counter in the hope that background music might make the ordeal more bearable.

  When she returned to her seat, Emil passed her the green cloth bag of letter tiles and she took seven and placed them on her little plastic shelf. She frowned. This was the Danish edition of the game, and she had selected an H, an L, and a hopeless selection of random vowels with mysterious accents, including three variations on the letter A.

  She watched as the others placed the first round of words, hoping in vain that inspiration would strike while she waited. It didn’t, and so, when it came to her turn, she reluctantly placed &ro on the board.

  ‘That’s seven points, I think,’ she mumbled, disappointedly. Simon, however, looked troubled. He leaned forwards and tapped his lip with the tip of his index finger. Bo noted his furrowed brow, and braced herself for an objection.

  ‘Aero?’ he asked in a nit-picking voice.

  Bo nodded. ‘I figured this –’ she pointed to the ® tile, ‘– would double as an a and an e. Given that it’s not a letter we have in English.’

  Emil gave her a supportive smile. ‘That sounds fair,’ he said.

  Simon grunted. ‘That’s not my issue. Aero is not a word.’ The others all looked at him blankly.

  ‘It is a word,’ Bo protested, trying to keep the childish indignation out of her voice.

  Simon shook his head. ‘It’s used in the formation of compound words. Aeronautics. Aerospace. But it’s not a word in its own right.’

  ‘It is a word, Simon,’ Florence chipped in, her eyes blazing defiantly. ‘It’s a noun. An Aero’s a chocolate bar, isn’t it?’

  Bo’s face brightened. ‘Good point,’ she said, rallying, but Simon’s lips remained pursed.

  ‘Brand names are not accepted in Scrabble,’ he stated quietly. Bo’s shoulders sank.

  ‘I think we should take a vote,’ Florence said brightly, ‘All those who think aero is a word, raise a hand.’ Florence’s arm shot up, and Bo was touched to see Emil lift his right hand. Involuntarily she smiled at him, and he held her gaze for a fraction longer than was necessary. Feeling a blush rising, she lifted her own hand. ‘There we have it,’ Florence said briskly. ‘Sorry, Simon, you’re outvoted. Aero is a word.’