‘Do you think he’d been lying to you, then, when he said nothing was going on?’
Bo sighed wearily. ‘Honestly? I don’t know. It might have been going on for months, for all I know. But even if it was, I think I’m just . . . not that bothered.’
‘Well that’s got to be a good thing,’ Kirsten said matter-of-factly. ‘And at least Ben got to try your chocolate brownies eventually,’ she added drolly.
‘He had to pay a fiver for the privilege, though,’ Bo pointed out, a mischievous smile playing around her mouth.
On the coffee table, Bo’s phone beeped. She sighed and leaned sideways to pick it up.
‘Oh, my God,’ she exclaimed, staring at the screen.
‘It’s not from Ben, is it?’ Kirsten asked, with an alarmed look.
‘No, it’s from Florence,’ Bo answered, her face lighting up in a smile. ‘She and Simon are getting married!’
Kirsten stared, open mouthed, while Bo replied to Florence’s text with a succinct, YOU’RE WHAT?!
A phone call followed, during which Bo and Kirsten listened on speakerphone while Florence described the events of the previous weekend. Simon had finished the second draft of his novel, she explained breathlessly, and they had gone out for dinner in Hove on Saturday night to celebrate, ‘A nice restaurant, too – I should have realised something was up.’
Bo and Kirsten smirked.
They had been walking back to Florence’s flat along the beach afterwards when it started to rain, ‘and I mean really rain,’ – she paused for emphasis – ‘it was like Skagen all over again. Blowing off the sea horizontally.’
They had sought shelter behind a row of beach huts and it was there, huddled together under a flimsy umbrella watching rivulets of water stream off the huts’ tiled roofs, that Simon had turned to Florence and said there was something he’d been wanting to ask her.
‘He’d planned it all, bought a ring and everything,’ Florence said, sounding simultaneously flattered and incredulous. ‘He’d been counting on a clear moonlit night, but instead he got lashing rain and both of us looking like drowned rats.’
Bo and Kirsten aww-ed in unison.
The wedding was going to be in Sussex in early May, she said.
‘Nothing fancy, just a big barn party for all our friends,’ said Florence.
‘So soon!’ Bo exclaimed.
‘You know me, babe, once I’ve made my mind up to do something, I like to get on with it. You can both come, can’t you?’
‘Of course!’ Kirsten said avidly.
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Bo agreed. There followed a high-spirited chat which covered the obligatory topics of the newly engaged: the dress (‘nothing flouncy’), the hen night (‘don’t care as long as there’s plenty of booze’) and the honeymoon (‘probably Butlins. We’re both skint’). They were about to say their goodbyes when Florence asked Bo if she would consider baking something for the wedding day.
‘Nothing fancy, we don’t want a white-tiered monstrosity. Cupcakes, perhaps? We’d pay you, obviously.’
Bo said she would be honoured. ‘No need to pay me, though,’ she insisted and, before Florence had a chance to protest, offered to bring the horse-box too, on the basis that it would be good publicity for the business.
‘You’re on, babe,’ Florence agreed unhesitatingly.
*
Lying in bed that night, Bo texted Florence to ask if Emil knew about the engagement and whether they planned to invite him to the wedding.
‘Yes, Simon texted him and of course we’re inviting him!’ came the reply. ‘It wouldn’t be a Skagen reunion without him!’
Bo’s heart felt like it flipped in her chest. She stared at the phone for a moment then, with a purposeful intake of breath, she composed another text.
Hi Emil. Great news about Florence and Simon isn’t it? Do you think you’ll be able to come to the wedding?
She set her phone back down on the bedside table and closed her eyes, resolving not to look at it again before the morning. But when the phone buzzed a few minutes later, she sat bolt upright and snatched the phone so fast she knocked a box of tissues and bottle of water onto the floor.
Chapter 24
Eight a.m. on the day of the wedding saw Bo and Kirsten speeding around the M25, a tower of cardboard cupcake trays stacked on the back seat of the Land Rover, and the horse-box trailing behind. Bo had hooked her iPod up to the stereo and turned the volume up high to drown out the noisy thrum of the Land Rover’s engine, and was singing along enthusiastically to Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).
In the passenger seat beside her, Kirsten sipped tea from a thermos and winced in the early summer sunlight.
‘How come you’re so perky?’ Kirsten groaned. ‘It should be against the law to be up this early on a Saturday.’
Bo crunched the gears and assumed a self-righteous look. ‘I slept till seven this morning. That’s a lie-in for me, these days.’
Kirsten yawned into the back of her hand. ‘The ceremony’s not till two,’ she protested half-heartedly.
‘I know,’ answered Bo patiently. ‘But I need time to set up.’
They arrived at the reception site in Sussex just before ten. A hand-painted ‘WEDDING’ sign on the grass verge guided them through an open five-bar gate onto a rough track.
‘Wow. When she said it was no-frills, she wasn’t exaggerating,’ Bo observed, peering through the windscreen at the ramshackle wooden barn in a field up ahead. She slowed to a crawl, mindful of the Land Rover’s ageing suspension and the deep potholes pock-marking the track.
Several cars and vans were parked on the grass and the site was busy with people rushing back and forth carrying furniture or flowers. A row of portable toilets was being lowered into position from a flatbed truck and, by the entrance to the barn, a balding man was unloading lights and a sound system from the back of a van labelled Have I Got Grooves for You. It took Bo several minutes to locate Florence among the melee, finally spotting her standing beside a Transit van in a t-shirt and leggings.
Bo wound down her window and leaned out. ‘Happy wedding day!’ she shouted. ‘Shouldn’t you be doing bridal stuff? Hair and make-up, or a manicure?’ Bo asked, as Florence trotted over.
Florence snorted dismissively. ‘Oh please, I have no intention of looking like a drag queen on my wedding day. Besides, there’s too much to do here. Everything’s a bit last-minute, as you might have noticed.’
On the grass in front of the barn, an array of gazebos of varying sizes and designs had been erected to form a makeshift marquee. Bo pulled the car onto the grass and clambered out. Beneath the colourful fabric of the mismatched gazebos, a disparate assortment of seating including deckchairs, plastic garden recliners and beanbags had been laid out on rugs, creating an effect which felt like a cross between a youth club and a hippy commune.
‘Simon, Bo and Kirsten are here,’ Florence shouted across the tented area. From the far side of the space, where he was manoeuvring a wicker sofa into position, Simon looked up and waved.
'Do you want to see the cakes?’ Bo asked, gesticulating towards the cardboard cupcake trays.
Florence clapped her hands and nodded.
Bo carefully removed one of the trays from the back seat and lifted the lid. She had baked vanilla cupcakes, iced with buttercream and dusted with edible gold glitter. Each one was decorated with a tiny flag attached to a cocktail stick reading I Do; Mr & Mrs; or Just Married.
Florence squealed with delight. ‘Bo they’re gorgeous,’ she cooed, and grabbed Bo around the neck in a one-armed hug. ‘Oh, that reminds me, babe,’ she said suddenly. ‘There’s something I wanted to give you. Wait there!’
Florence winked and ran across the track to her car. She returned carrying a slim package wrapped in plain brown paper.
‘It’s just a little something to say thank you for doing the cakes,’ she said breathily.
Bo tore open the paper to see a framed pencil drawing of a seascape
, in muted shades of green and grey.
‘Oh! It’s Grenen!’ she exclaimed, recognising the curved sand spit tapering into the sea, lapped on both sides by tumbling waves.
‘It’s a sketch I did last summer. I thought you might like it,’ Florence said modestly.
‘It’s beautiful, Florence, I’ll treasure it’ she stammered, and they hugged again.
It was gone eleven when Florence and Simon finally set off to get ready for the ceremony. Bo had moved the horse-box into position between the barn and the tented area and was unhooking it from the Land Rover.
‘Anyone want a lift to the hotel?’ Florence offered, climbing into the driver’s seat of her Punto.
‘Yes please,’ Kirsten called. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Bo?’ she asked apologetically.
‘Course not. No need for you to hang around here. I’ll see you at the hotel in a bit.’
Kirsten grabbed her overnight bag from the Land Rover and ran gratefully over to Florence’s car.
Bo watched the Punto bump its way along the uneven track, then glanced at her watch. Satisfied that she had plenty of time, she connected the generator and opened the hatch. She wrote ‘Congratulations Florence and Simon’ inside a pink heart on her chalkboard and placed it on the serving counter, and had just begun to rinse the coffee machine filters in the sink when she heard a familiar voice behind her say,
‘What’s on today’s menu?’
A jolt of something like electricity surged through her and she turned to see the top half of Emil framed in the rectangle of the open hatch. He was dressed in a pale grey suit with a lilac shirt unbuttoned at the neck. His face was lightly tanned and there was a dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose.
‘I guess that depends,’ she replied demurely. ‘What were you hoping for?’ But her offhand tone was betrayed by the reflexive way her hand went to smooth her hair. Emil tilted his head back to look at the banner on the roof.
‘Hygge and Kisses,’ he read with careful deliberation. ‘In that case, could I have a kiss please?’ Bo stepped forward and stooped, placing her elbows on the wooden serving counter, with her chin propped on the heel of her palm so that her head was level with his.
‘Only if you promise not to tell any of my other customers,’ she said in a confidential tone. ‘Otherwise they’ll all be wanting one.’
She closed her eyes and, when Emil’s lips met hers, it was as if all the angst and doubt she had felt since they parted in Skagen suddenly evaporated, and all that mattered was the here and now, and that they had found each other again.
*
The wedding ceremony took place in the function room of a nearby hotel. Florence looked radiant in a vintage tea-dress, clutching a hand-tied bouquet of wild flowers, while Simon beamed beside her in an elegantly tailored navy suit.
Afterwards, back at the barn, they sat down to eat at two long, parallel rows of tables upon which tealights flickered inside glass holders. Bo was seated next to Simon’s cousin, a dour chartered surveyor, with whom she made polite but somewhat stilted conversation, whilst being acutely conscious of Emil opposite her, engaged in courteous small-talk with an elderly relative of Florence’s. A few places further down the table, Kirsten was engrossed in a lively exchange with a friend of Simon’s, a bookish type in his early thirties. Bo noticed how Kirsten became increasingly flushed and giddy as the meal went on, breaking out into peals of laughter and flicking her hair off her shoulders coquettishly.
When Bo rose from the table after the meal, Emil did the same, offering to help her serve coffee and cupcakes.
‘I’ve never had an assistant before,’ she remarked, unlocking the rear doors of the horse-box. He stepped up onto the footplate, stooping slightly so that his head did not knock against the top of the door opening.
‘Wow, it is . . . small in here,’ he noted, leaning sideways so that Bo could open one of the wall-mounted cupboards. Bo retrieved a bag of coffee beans then slammed the cupboard door shut.
‘Don’t you dare criticise my horse-box,’ she warned. ‘Besides, you say small, but I prefer cosy. Hyggeligt, even.’ A playful smile hovered around her mouth. ‘Now make yourself useful and grind some coffee beans.’
Emil operated the coffee machine while Bo served cupcakes through the hatch. Once all the guests had been served, they poured themselves a glass of Champagne and wandered back to the makeshift marquee, passing Kirsten and Simon’s friend, who were sitting together on a garden swing, deep in conversation and seemingly oblivious to everyone around them.
They sank onto an ancient velour sofa. Emil put his arm around Bo’s shoulder. She instinctively nestled in closer to his side, feeling suddenly sentimental and lightheaded. For a few minutes they sipped their Champagne in silence, listening to the sounds of laughter and music from inside the barn.
‘When are you going back to Copenhagen?’ Bo asked at last, keeping her eyes on the insects that swirled in loose helical shapes above the grass, their wings shimmering and sparkling in the golden evening sunlight.
‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ Emil answered. She nodded once, slowly, and silence seemed to fill the space between them. ‘But I will be back in London in July,’ he added in an incidental, almost offhand way. Bo sat up straight and turned to face him, her expression incredulous.
‘You will? How come?’
‘For work. The restaurant is taking a summer residency at one of the hotels. Just for two weeks. A pop-up, I believe is the correct name.’ He smiled at her shyly, and Bo stared back, stalled between excitement and trepidation.
‘And will you be working all the time you’re here?’ she asked tentatively, hoping her tremulous voice would not give away how much hung on his answer.
‘It will be a lot of work, yes,’ he acknowledged sombrely, and Bo looked away feeling her eyes start to prickle. ‘But that is why I have arranged to stay for an extra week afterwards.’
There was a fractional delay while Bo digested the meaning of his words. Then she turned abruptly to face him, and found that he was smiling.
‘An extra week?’ she repeated.
He nodded.
‘And you won’t have to work?’
He shook his head. ‘It will be a holiday,’ he said, and his eyes twinkled behind their metal framed glasses. ‘In fact I was wondering if you’d be free to show me some of the London sights . . . ?’
Bo felt like her heart was about to burst. ‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘Have you ever been to Holloway?’ and she leaned over to kiss him.
‘Check out these two lovebirds!’
Bo turned to see Florence swaying towards them, woozy and pink in the face.
Emil and Bo shuffled along the sofa and Florence collapsed tipsily onto the cushion beside them, causing a spring somewhere beneath them to emit a comical boing noise. Florence didn’t seem to notice.
‘I would ask whether you’re both having a good time,’ she said, ‘but I think I already know the answer.’
‘We’re having a very nice time, thank you,’ said Emil, ‘But more importantly, are you?’
Florence snorted. ‘Bloody brilliant time, thanks babe. I should get married more often. Cheers!’
She held out her champagne flute and the three of them clinked glasses.
On the path in front of them, a bespectacled man in a three-piece suit staggered past, slopping red wine over the side of his glass. ‘That’s Simon’s literary agent,’ Florence whispered, as if she were divulging sensitive information. ‘Simon thought it would be a good idea to invite him.’
They all watched the agent stumble up the steps to the portable toilets.
‘Did Simon ever let you read his book?’ Bo asked curiously, after the man had disappeared inside the Gents.
Florence grinned. ‘Yep.’
‘And? The suspense has been killing me. Were we right about the Scandi-Noir?’ she asked keenly.
Florence chuckled. ‘I’m not sure I’m at liberty to tell you,’ she replied demurely, ignoring B
o’s imploring look. ‘Let’s just say, it’s not what I was expecting.’
It was hardly a satisfactory answer, but Bo recognised she was unlikely to get anything more out of Florence on the subject tonight.
Whoops and shrieks emanated from the barn, where the disco was in full swing.
‘Just think,’ Florence said, ‘only six months ago none of us had met. And look at us now. Weird, isn’t it?’
Bo nodded. ‘It is a bit.’ She was conscious of the warmth of Emil’s thigh against hers, and the beginnings of a wave of sentimentality which made her throat constrict. It occurred to her that for the first time in ages, she felt completely at ease, not just with the people around her, but with herself. For the moment at least, life felt exactly how it was supposed to.
‘I blame you, Emil,’ Florence said abruptly, leaning across Bo to fix Emil with narrowed eyes.
‘Blame me?’ he repeated, alarmed, ‘For what?’
‘All that hygge nonsense at the summerhouse. Making us appreciate the simpler things and telling us to be grateful.’ Florence wrinkled her nose in pretend disdain. ‘We were all quite content to be miserable until you and your hygge arrived. And now look at what it’s led to.’
‘I agree. Who needs hygge in their life anyway?’ Bo concurred, sniffing purposefully. Emil laughed and rubbed his hair with one hand.
‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I just thought it would help us get to know each other.’
‘Well, you weren’t wrong about that, babe,’ Florence sighed, leaning across Bo to pat his knee affectionately. ‘Oh look, here comes my husband.’
Simon was making his way between the chairs and tables towards them. He had loosened his tie and there was a rosy glow to his cheeks.
‘What are you all doing out here?’ he asked. ‘The party’s just getting going.’ He grabbed Florence by the wrists and levered her upright. She groaned tipsily, and he put his arm around her waist to support her.
‘I’ve requested a song just for you, Bo,’ Simon added, a smile hovering around his lips. ‘I told the DJ to put on something really classy, for a friend of ours with impeccable musical taste.’
Hygge and Kisses Page 23
