‘No kidding,’ he replied wryly, but without malice.
They stood facing each other in the middle of the bustling market and Bo felt uncomfortably as if she was on a first date, and wasn’t quite sure what to say.
‘It’s starting to fill up,’ Bo observed, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘Shall we get something to eat?’
They set off on a tour of the market, side by side but not touching, browsing the different dishes on offer, before eventually settling on a stall selling Vietnamese rice bowls, with strips of chicken and pork sizzling tantalisingly on an open griddle. They paid for their food then took it to the tables beneath the railway arch.
The eating area beneath the arch was much busier now, and most of the seats were taken. They squeezed between the backs of other customers to claim two vacant chairs on one side of a long sharing table.
‘Smells good,’ she observed, peeling back the plastic lid from her bowl and inhaling the mouth-watering sweet-and-sour-infused steam.
They began to eat, and Bo was conscious of the proximity of those sharing their table, and the way the acoustics of the enclosed space intensified the volume of conversations around them. She began to wonder whether it had been a mistake to suggest meeting here, given the nature of what they had to talk about.
‘So,’ Bo began tentatively, ‘how’s work?’
‘Better,’ Ben replied, with a relieved look. ‘The clients have stopped throwing their toys out of the pram, for now at least. I think maybe they’re starting to realise I’m not a complete idiot.’ He gave a hollow laugh, but Bo was struck by the insecurity behind his comment. She watched him spear a slice of chicken with his wooden fork. ‘Still bloody hard work, though,’ he mused, ‘I’ve been the last to leave the office every day this week.’ He took a mouthful of chicken and chewed.
Bo smiled supportively. ‘It’ll settle down. I’m sure you’re doing great,’ she reassured him. He returned a coy smile and murmured ‘Thanks,’ and, for a fleeting second, she glimpsed a little boy unsure if he had bitten off more than he could chew. It was a vulnerability he didn’t reveal very often, and Bo found it strangely endearing. She was surprised to find herself fighting the urge to stroke his hand.
Feeling suddenly bashful, Bo returned to her food while, across the table, two attractive young women squeezed into the seats opposite theirs. They were in mid-conversation, oblivious to the way that, as they shrugged off their coats, Ben’s eyes flickered across their bodies in automatic appraisal of their looks. Bo’s urge to comfort him instantly drained away, and she stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork.
‘So, I had a job interview this week,’ she said, in a tetchier tone than she had intended.
‘Oh right. What’s the job?’ he replied, his eyes snapping back to hers. She took a sip of water, deliberating whether to give a positive spin to her account of the job interview – good company, decent package – or whether to be honest about her reservations.
‘Marketing executive. For a food company,’ she said evenly, but even as she spoke she noticed his eyes flicking to the women across the table again. Thanks to the echo-chamber acoustics of the railway arch, Bo could hear every word of their conversation.
‘He was on Tinder the whole time,’ the long-haired brunette said, scandalised.
‘Wanker,’ replied her friend.
Ben had evidently been listening in too, because it took him a fraction longer to respond to Bo than it should have.
‘What’s the company?’ he asked, finally.
‘Petits Pains. You know, the sandwich places you see in railway stations.’
A sneer began to form on Ben’s lip. ‘Mmm, gastronomic stuff,’ he scoffed. ‘
‘It’s a marketing job, Ben. I wouldn’t have to eat their food,’ she replied snippily.
‘Thank God for that,’ he gave a snide laugh. Bo could feel the beginnings of a familiar resentment bubble in her stomach. How typical that he expected her to be sympathetic when it came to his career, but was so coolly dismissive about hers. Bo sat and ate in resentful silence. She heard the brunette across the table say,
‘I’ve blocked his number now,’ and her friend sniggered.
‘So, how was Denmark?’ Ben’s question caught her unawares. She scraped at the last remaining grains of sticky rice coating the inside of her plastic bowl.
‘Oh, well. It poured with rain for the first couple of days so we were pretty much housebound. Which was okay, because the summerhouse was very cosy. After that, we went for bike rides, walked on the beach, flew a kite, cooked.’ She was speaking quickly, and Ben’s puzzled expression made her suspect she was coming across as flustered – defensive, even. She had the sensation of sailing into dangerous waters. ‘We saw the Northern Lights one night, though; that was pretty cool,’ she gabbled. A tiny flicker of jealousy flashed across Ben’s face.
‘Wow. Sounds amazing,’ he said expressionlessly.
‘It was,’ she agreed, ‘And quite rare for Denmark. We were really lucky.’
‘Tell me again, who else was there?’ Ben asked. His eyes were fixed on the side of her face and, for the first time since they had sat down, she felt certain that she had his full attention, ironically, just at the moment she would rather she didn’t. She frowned at her empty rice bowl.
‘Oh, well, there was Florence, the artist I told you about. Kirsten arrived on Friday. And there were a couple of other friends of Kirsten’s mum there too.’ Through her peripheral vision, she could see Ben looking at her intently, emanating suspicion.
‘Were they artists too?’
‘Who?’ she stalled.
‘The other friends.’
‘Um, no,’ she said vaguely. ‘One was a writer. The other one’s a chef.’ Ben’s face had taken on a mask-like, expressionless quality, and she could feel a warm flush spreading up her neck.
‘What were they called?’
‘Simon. He’s the writer. And Emil.’ As she said the name, her gaze dropped.
‘Email?’ Ben quipped. ‘What kind of name is that?’
‘Not Email, Emil. He’s Danish.’ She felt a flicker of indignation and was aware that she was blushing now, from her neck to her cheeks. She knew that Ben had noticed.
‘And Emil’s a chef, is he?’ Ben asked flatly.
She nodded. ‘In Copenhagen.’
A clatter of cutlery being dropped on the stone floor provided a welcome interruption, and Ben turned away to look in the direction of the noise.
When he turned back, he said coldly, ‘Sounds like quite the house party you had out there.’
‘Hardly,’ Bo protested, with a forced casualness, ‘Like I said, we went for walks, did some cooking, played games – you’d have been bored senseless.’ She attempted a laugh, but Ben’s face was stony.
‘Well, you must have been enjoying yourself. You didn’t return my call.’
Bo opened her mouth, on the verge of blaming the poor phone signal in Skagen, but then the thought just tell him came unbidden to her mind.
‘Look, Ben,’ she said quietly, ‘there is something I should probably tell you,’ her eyes coming to rest on a watermark on the table next to her empty rice bowl. ‘I kind of had . . . a thing . . . with someone while I was in Denmark.’ She glanced across to see Ben blink once, very slowly.
‘A thing?’ he repeated. ‘What kind of thing?’
Bo swallowed. ‘Like, a romantic kind of thing,’ she said, cursing herself inwardly for her evasiveness, like a child trying to dodge a telling-off.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Who with? The writer or the chef?’ There was a harshness to his tone.
‘Emil. The chef,’ she whispered, staring hard at the water stain.
‘Right.’
She allowed herself a fleeting look across at him. His jaw was clenched and he was staring into the middle distance.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ he said, his voice sceptical, and louder now, ‘having jumped on the plane to the middle of fucking nowhere in Scandinavia
and thrown yourself under the nearest Danishman –’ Bo winced but he kept talking ‘– you text me to apologise for wrongly accusing me of cheating. Then, when I accept your apology, you give me the cold shoulder again, don’t return my call, and I hear nothing from you until two weeks after you’re back.’ He gave a derisive snort. ‘Classy, Blu-ray. Really classy.’ Bo cringed. He was making no effort to lower his voice, and Bo was acutely aware that the women opposite had fallen silent to eavesdrop.
‘That’s not how it happened,’ she whispered meekly. Ben rolled his eyes. ‘You make it sound like I did it just to get back at you!’ she protested.
‘Well, didn’t you?’ he snapped. Along the table a man with a beard looked over his shoulder at them.
‘No!’ she insisted vehemently. She dropped her voice and in a hushed, measured tone said, ‘The way things had been going between us, I wasn’t even sure if we were still together when I left for Denmark. All that stuff with Charlotte, remember?’ – Ben let out a derisive snort – ‘Milton Keynes. And that photo on Facebook. So what was I supposed to think?’ Her eyes were shining defiantly.
He glared back. ‘Maybe you were supposed to think about who you trusted more, me or a jumped-up office gossip like Hayley,’ he said spitefully. ‘And I told you there was nothing going on in that photo. But you had to go and prove a point by shagging the first man you met in Denmark.’
Bo slumped in her seat, feeling drained and defeated. ‘Look, I didn’t do it to prove a point. It was just one of those things. It just happened.’ She resented the way he was wilfully twisting her words to make her behaviour seem vindictive and vengeful.
Ben was staring into the middle distance again, his face set in a snide smile. ‘A holiday romance. How lovely for you. While I was back home working my bollocks off.’ He had crossed over into self-pity and, all of a sudden, her residual guilt evaporated, and indignation rushed in to take its place.
‘It’s not my fault that you’re having to work hard in your new job,’ she replied. ‘I only went away because I’d been made redundant, remember? Whereas you got a big fat promotion. Poor you,’ she said sarcastically. He shot her a sideways look. ‘And besides, it’s not like we were ever a proper couple. You’re conveniently forgetting that you never wanted anyone to know we were together.’
Ben rolled his eyes wearily in a not again expression. An air of mutual dissatisfaction and recrimination had settled over them and they lapsed into silence. Bo fiddled with her water bottle. Ben pulled out his phone and stared at the screen.
They sat there for a while until eventually Ben placed his phone on the table and said, ‘So, I guess you’ll be flying back to Denmark soon, then, to visit your Viking.’ Bo bridled, but let the jibe pass.
‘I don’t know yet,’ she replied airily.
‘A chef, too. Quite a catch, for a foodie like you,’ he was sneering now.
‘That’s right,’ she shot back. ‘He works at just the kind of restaurant you like, come to think of it. Michelin stars. Expensive.’ Bo hated the tone of her voice, sour and petty, but she sensed they had passed a point of no return and it seemed too late to try and retain her dignity.
‘Well, in that case, I guess you won’t need me to take you out any more,’ he muttered, draining his bottle of water.
She stared at him hard for a moment, then said quietly, ‘No, I guess I won’t.’
Chapter 20
Bo threw herself onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. She knew she ought to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come; rather than sad, she felt numb and empty. Her gaze settled on a cobweb in the cornicing, and as her eyes traced the pattern of its dusty threads, she replayed her conversation with Ben at the food market. Although she was in no doubt that their relationship was over, she wasn’t entirely sure which one of them had ended it. It was as if they had stumbled into a stalemate through mutual pique and wounded pride, and breaking up had been as much a way to save face as a conscious choice.
There had been a few excruciating moments following their quarrel during which they remained at the crowded table in the railway arch, neither of them knowing quite what to do. Bo had been torn between an urge to walk off in a huff, and a desire to part on good terms. In the end, they had left the table together and walked out through the market in silence. When they reached the main road, Ben had mumbled, ‘See you around,’ and given her a cursory peck on the cheek, which Bo had met with a tight smile and a perfunctory, ‘Take care’. As break-ups went, it had been neither apocalyptic nor amicable, just awkward and unsatisfactory.
Bo closed her eyes and tried to force the image of Ben’s retreating back from her mind. Uncomfortable though it may have been, the break-up ought – surely – to make her life simpler. At least now she could work out how she felt about Emil without the nagging guilt that she was betraying Ben. She rolled sideways, pushed herself upright on her mattress and took out her phone.
Hey Emil, she typed. How are you? I’ve been thinking about you a lot since I got back. Hope you’re well. Bo x
Her thumb hovered above the send button, but something inside her urged caution. It was not just that it felt opportunistic and callous to contact Emil so soon after breaking up with Ben. There was also the lurking suspicion that she might have made too much of what happened in Denmark, that she had got carried away like a lovesick schoolgirl and that, if Emil had thought anything could come of what had happened, then he would have been in touch by now.
It had been a fortnight since she returned to London and, the more time that passed, the less certain she was of her feelings about Emil. After all, how well did she really know him? They had only spent a few days together and, although some of her memories of him were as vivid as if they had happened yesterday, when it came to his life in Copenhagen – his real life – her knowledge was hazy, to say the least. She couldn’t picture his apartment, or his friends, or how he spent his weekends. She had no idea what his reaction would be upon receiving a text from her. Would he simply ignore it or – worse still – feel obliged to send a polite, thanks but no thanks reply? She pressed delete and let her phone drop onto the duvet.
Over the days that followed, Bo sank into a depression tinged with self-pity. She moped around the flat in her pyjamas, on the basis that there was no point getting dressed when she had nowhere to be and no one to see. She dwelt obsessively on the twin preoccupations of Ben and Emil, alternating between feeling resentful and hard-done-by, and berating herself for bringing about her own predicament. Some of her friends had invited her out, via a WhatsApp chat entitled Xmas drinkies!!! but her heart sank at the prospect of dragging herself into the West End for an evening of enforced sociability at some overpriced bar. Besides, she knew she would end up talking about her love life and her redundancy, and recoiled at the prospect of her friends’ outraged sympathy on both counts.
But when Kirsten started bringing home bags of gifts and wrapping paper, and tactfully enquired whether Bo was ready for Christmas, Bo realised she could wallow no longer. She had brought back a few gifts for her family from Denmark: bottles of Aalborg Aquavit for her father and brother-in-law, and scented candles infused with aromas of the Scandinavian landscape for Lauren and her mother. But, with Christmas was only a week away, there was more shopping still to do.
Bo had always enjoyed Christmas shopping; she loved lingering over window displays, and found something seductively alluring about the notion that life could be transformed by the acquisition of a few luxuries. But this year, as she wandered, aimless and uninspired, through the gifts section of John Lewis, the whole enterprise struck her as hollow and crassly materialistic. She grew increasingly fraught as she moved between the lavish displays, unable to summon enthusiasm for anything she saw. Everything seemed so unoriginal and predictable: toiletries sets, pointless desktop gadgets, or quirky gifts themed around gardening or golf.
She had begun to despair of finding anything to buy until, wandering into the kitchenware department, she paused in front of a
shelf of stoppered glass storage jars. Seized by an idea, she grabbed a selection of jars and put them in her basket: rather than buy some generic, cliched gift, she would give home-baked Danish treats, something simple and unpretentious, but made with love, Combined with the Aquavit and the candles from Denmark, it would feel like giving the gift of hygge. The thought made her smile as she stood in line with the other frazzled shoppers in the long queue snaking towards the tills.
When Kirsten returned from work that evening, she found the flat heady with the aroma of ground spices and sugar, and Taylor Swift blaring from the speaker dock. Bo was in the kitchen in a flour-streaked apron, washing up at the sink whilst singing along to Never Getting Back Together.
‘Blimey, you’ve been busy, haven’t you?’ Kirsten observed, looking at the rows of walnut-sized cookies cooling on racks on the kitchen worktop. ‘Are those pebernodder?’ she asked, ‘I haven’t eaten those for years.’
Bo looked over her shoulder from the sink and nodded. ‘I found a Danish cookery blog. Try one,’ she urged. Kirsten popped a cookie into her mouth and chewed while Bo watched nervously, like a contestant on a cookery show awaiting the judge’s verdict.
‘Just as I remember them,’ Kirsten said approvingly.
The following day, Bo made romkugler, rum-flavoured truffles dusted in coconut flakes. Like the pebernodder, they were characteristically Danish: simple and unpretentious, but deliciously moreish. She carefully decanted the truffles and cookies into the jars, to which she attached hand-made labels with red ribbon. Feeling pleased with herself, she took some of the leftover truffles and a cup of tea to the living room.
Dusk was falling and the room was in semi-darkness so, balancing her tea and saucer of truffles, she jabbed at the light switch with her elbow. In the harsh light from the overhead bulb, she felt a pang of shame for how shabby and slovenly the room was. Old newspapers were strewn around, empty mugs stood on the coffee table, and the place hadn’t been dusted for weeks. She did a quick, efficient tidy-up, clearing away the dirty mugs, tipping the rubbish into the wastepaper basket and straightening the sofa cushions. Then, seized by a sudden urge to make the room feel more . . . Danish, she returned to the kitchen, dug a multipack of tealights out of the drawer and found nine glass ramekins stacked in precarious towers at the back of one of the cabinets. With the blinds lowered, the overhead light off, and the flickering tealights in their improvised holders, the living room felt infinitely cosier and more hyggeligt. The soft yellow candlelight rendered the dust invisible and dulled the sofa’s garish tartan. Bo sank onto the sofa and propped her feet up on the coffee table, feeling pleased with her domestic prowess.
Hygge and Kisses Page 19
