I’ve Turned Into My Mother

Drip, drop, drip, drop. The sound of the leaky faucet continues unceasingly. “Right then” I mutter to myself, grudgingly getting up from my rocking chair. Getting up has been becoming increasingly difficult. I never thought I was terribly old, but it’s creeping up on me. I walk into the kitchen. “Why did I just walk into the kitchen”? I ask myself out loud. Drip, drop, drip, drop. Oh yes, that. At least this one was easy. See? I am getting old. Much of the time, I don’t remember why I entered a room. There. It’s done. The water’s stopped dripping.

Honey bush! Yes, I think I’ll have some of that. I fill the kettle and switch it on. A disposable filter, a teaspoon of honey bush and an egg spoon full of sugar. There is something very satisfying about the sound of boiling water filling a cup. In the sitting room, the fire is crackling. I can’t wait to get back to that. Warm, cosy and comfortable. Fifteen years ago, I was eager to move into my own flat. After a couple years with flatmates in Camden, I finally made it. I found a 550-square-foot flat in Golders Green. That was also the year I first voted for the Tories. I never thought I would, well, I convinced myself that I would never vote for those parasites. Labour forever! Out with Rule Britannia, Cool Britannia, Cool Britannia rules the Airwaves! “Oh bother” – I mutter, realising that I’m losing the plot again. Yes, the honey bush. I remove the filter and toss it into the bin. A splash of milk. That’ll do nicely.

Drip, drop, drip, drop. “Oh sugar”, there, sorted. I see something out of the corner of my eye. As the year winds down, the days are getting shorter and shorter. Outside, Leslie and Julie are walking their dog, a pug named Boris. Julie sees me standing at the window and waves. I wave back. Salisbury Fields aren’t Hyde Park, but somehow, I don’t mind that anymore. I don’t know exactly when I had had enough of London, I don’t even know exactly why, but one day, I’d had enough of it. In time, everything runs together and becomes indistinguishable. Trends changed so quickly that I could no longer recognise them. Suddenly, I wasn’t a member of a marketer’s target demographic any more. I was too old. I think… Wait, yes, it was the day I signed up for a MyWaitrose card that I started to think differently.

The Dorset winds are howling outside again. But in here, in my Victorian terrace, it’s warm. Time to throw in another piece of wood, a piece of aged oak from a farmer in the Piddle Valley. “Too quiet”. I turn on my Samsung and open the Spotify App. “Dark Dorset Mix” – ah, yes, perfect. Very Lynn, Frank Sinatra, Joan London, Noël Coward, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald. “Ugh”! I see my reflexion. My co-workers say I’m well-preserved, but… I’m getting my mother’s chin and I’ve been catching myself sounding exactly like her. All that is done in the dark will be brought to the light, all that is obscured will be made clear. I am turning into my mother.

Advertisement

It’s Not So Bad

“Your driving is better than it used to be”, Caleb said to Anton as he guided their car down the narrow, winding road. “I’ve been doing it long enough now”. Anton didn’t say much as the road turned single-lane with no reduction in curvature. They were alone, mercifully. At this part of Tiger Creek, working your way around other cars could be nerve-wracking, especially if the other driver lacked the foresight to drive slowly. Anton came to a stop, set the car to park and pulled up the handbrake. “There’s no one else here” he said, getting out of the car. Caleb reached behind him and retrieved the picnic basket Anton had prepared. Chimichangas, “Felicia’s famous home-style fries”, a few packets of ranch dressing, bottled water, fruit salad and a couple bottles of coffee. They walked past the old power station with its granite boulders strewn about. “Let’s sit over there”, Anton said as he pointed toward their old favourite table, kicking his sandals against a stone to remove a pebble.

“Remember when we used to tie a kayak to a tree stump and doze off for hours”? Caleb asked. “You’re waxing nostalgic, that’s unusual”. Caleb grinned, in equal measures sheepish and impish. Caleb wasn’t the type for nostalgia. It wasn’t that he hated the past or despised what he was. Far from it. Caleb possessed a zeal for living. The present mattered more to him than the past. “You can’t live in memories, but you can make new ones” he liked to say. Which is true, not that it always mattered to Anton. Anton took a darker view of life and the world than Caleb.

“Whatever, I’d rather eat my fries and chimichangas before they get cold”. They sat down at the table. “How far to the tree line” Anton asked him, looking around. “It’s hard to say, maybe a thousand feet”? Caleb answered. Tiger Creek was in a mountain valley. Few who weren’t locals knew about it – and the locals wanted to keep it that way. They sat together, side by side, on top of the table like teenagers. “It’s nice to be back” Anton said, looking across the creek, to the sandy beach. “I’m glad to see you again” Caleb answered. “Remember that time we snuck down here at night and went skinny-dipping”? Anton asked him, “Oh my god, yes! The water was so cold I thought I’d become a woman” Caleb answered, laughing. “I wouldn’t know that feeling” Anton said. “Of course not, you’re always a woman”. “Ha” Anton answered, smacking Caleb on the back of his head. The finished their meal in between the occasional guffaw and slap.

Anton and Caleb sat together looking like teenagers, provoking each other, chortling, taking swipes at each other. Anton stood up and gathered their rubbish, packing all of it in a paper back and forced it through the narrow slot of the raccoon-proof bin. He walked back to the table. “Okay, what’s going on” Anton asked Caleb. “Nothing. Why do you think something’s going on”? Caleb asked him, a devious glint in his eyes. Anton stood up and walked a few feet away. “I don’t trust you” he said, laughing. “You better not”! Caleb retorted as he jumped up, picked Anton up and threw him into the water. “You arse” Anton shouted at him, between choking on water and laughing. “I’ll get you for this”. “I’d like to see you try”. Caleb grinned down at Anton, kicking the creek to splash more water at him. In a flash, Anton jumped up and grabbed Caleb’s leg, pulling him down into the water. “Told you so” Anton laughed before asking “Now how are we going to dry off”? “Probably by stripping naked and wringing out our clothes” Caleb answered.

They swam together to a quiet, secluded inlet before stripping. It’s far harder for two men in their 30s to get away with public nudity than a couple teenagers. Anton turned to Caleb, “Hey, Kalin, when are your new high heels coming in”? “Why? You want to borrow them? I don’t think cheetah print suits you. You should definitely get the zebra pattern instead, Antonia”. “’Antonia’? The water’s not that cold”. “Hmm… That’s true, so what’s your excuse”? “I’m still a growing boy” “You used that excuse 16 years ago, you’ll have to grow up eventually. At this rate you’ll be die of old age before you get there”. Caleb said teasingly.

They walked back to the picnic table together, holding their sandals, their shorts rolled up well above their thighs. “That was a lot of fun, actually” Anton said as he opened his coffee. “Yeah, it was” Caleb said, looking up, watching as a cloud crossed the sapphire-blue sky. They sat together, quietly. It was one of those moments of unbearable, painful lightness – when existence itself becomes a thing of such incredible beauty that eternity would pass in the blink of an eye. Anton reached his arm across Caleb’s shoulder and said “Thanks for putting up with me”. Caleb reached his arm around Anton. “You’re not that bad. I just wish you’d be happy more often. Life isn’t so bad if you choose not to make it that way”.

Strange Normalcy.

Ethereal, ephemeral. Those two words encapsulate life. We go through each day with a confident assurance that we exist, that everything around us exists. All that is tangible must, surely, exist. If one were so inclined, it would be possible to walk up to everyone around and touch her, touch him. This act would prove beyond reasonable doubt that they exist. I would not recommend this course of action, though. People can get odd when strangers walk up and touch them. Explaining that one simply wished to see if they were real would only remove and lingering doubt that you were utterly mad. It would be safer to touch buildings and inanimate objects if you really wanted to prove the point that the solidity of all that is around is proof that all is real.

Let’s assume, so that we don’t get bogged down in these minutiae, that all around us is tangible and, thus, real. This doesn’t change the fact that all is ethereal and ephemeral. So long as the world around us changes gradually, we adjust, relatively painlessly, with it. Kjøbenhavn became København, Malmö was once Malmø. More drastically, Christiania became Oslo. New buildings were built, old buildings were torn down. People moved away, passed away. Others were born, others moved in. Now try to imagine yourself as an expatriate, an emigrant or even someone in self-imposed exile returning after many years. Astrid Larsen is no longer working at that café on Godthåbsvej. No one even knows who she is, nor do they know anyone who might. It doesn’t matter that she took your order most days when you lived there for a couple of years.

You didn’t think about that, though, did you? Day after day you almost relied on Astrid taking your order in her direct, curt but always competent style. There was no reason to say much. In fact, there was little reason to even order. Sometimes, a quick nod was all that was needed. You always had the same, kaffe med mælk, café au lait. Those days you did need to speak were the days you wanted something extra, a romerske snegle – Roman snail – or a romkugle, a rum ball. That was life and as tangible but, it’s gone. That world no longer exists. What happened to the owners of that coffee shop? What happened to Astrid? One would like to think that the owners retired and that Astrid moved on to greater things.

It’s not important, really. You can go elsewhere. Let’s try that. Imagine that you’re at Risteriet, that trendy coffee shop on Studiestræde that gets plugged in the papers and by the Danish tourist board. They roast their own coffees, too! You walk in. It’s busy, but there’s just enough place for you to squeeze in. You have waht you always had, kaffe med mælk. It’s a more disconnected world now. You don’t care what is on the radio, not the way you did when you nodded your order to Astrid. In those days, you had a clunky Sony CD Walkman. Now, you have a Samsung Galaxy S8. You open your Spotify App and start to stare into space. Nu tændes himlens dybe glød og natten kommer fløjlsblød. De drømmende går snart til ro på mælkevejens stjernebro Now the deep glow of the heavens turns on and the night turns velvety. Dreams come to rest on the Milky Way’s bridge of stars. The barista brings you your favourite coffee, made with ethically sourced, organic Ethiopian beans.

Outside, on Studiestræde, the buildings look like you remember them – the way they’ve always looked. Well, at least since the street was rebuilt after the fire of 1795. Three teenage men walk past you. You don’t know them, but their names are Peder Larsen-Møller, Emil Madsen and Asger Nguyen. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, Peder makes you think of Astrid, his auburn hair, just slightly wavy, his slightly pointed, but still elegant, nose and the blue eyes, not quite sapphire, but certainly a deeper shade than the faint, blue-grey of a spring sky.

You can’t, you won’t dwell on this. A warm wind blows and the sun is shining. Life goes on, people carry on. With the self-assured knowledge that everything around is real, is tangible, is permanent people walk down the street on their way to appointments, home, gyms or nowhere in particular – like countless millions who’ve walked these same streets.

California Bye-bye

Helvetian Creek is one of those towns that, despite itself, is well preserved and still marketable. If it were an actress, it would be Liv Ullman. It’s age gracefully and reinvented itself. It might not be what it used to be, but at least it hasn’t turned into some monstrosity like Ms Ciccone. The high street is well-kept, perhaps a bit too much so. The Gold Rush storefronts and the Victorian pavement might, by an uncharitable sod, be described “twee”, “chocolate box” even. Egads! Chocolate box, a veritable pox.

On the corner of Miller’s Road and the high street stands a deli. It’s always been a deli, at least as far as I can remember. It suffered something terrible for a time; indifferent management. Charming staff and a character property with oh-so-much potential that, unfortunately, had seen better days and some strange phenomenon known as “direction”. Phoenix-like, it was resurrected by an ambitious former employee who had long been harbouring dreams of running her own deli-cum-coffee-shop.

Anton sat alone at his regular table by the window facing Miller Street, across from the decrepit remains of a former Forty-niner hotel and saloon. “How long can that last” he asks himself, comme d’habitude. It’s not an unfairly catty question, although even the bitchiest wouldn’t miss the barbed tone in that thought. After all, the cracks along the pavement emit an eerily refreshing breeze from the high water table beneath. The constant, futile, battle against the peril that is dry rot can’t be fought forever. It’s like those Japanese soldiers in the Philippines and sundry locales in South East Asia post-1945. The war was over, but they refused to acknowledge the obvious to themselves. The Helvetian Creek Castle will just have to fall to the ravages of time and the elements, falling in on itself like a mildewed house of cards.

 

Anton’s right elbow is on the table, his hand propping up his head as he looks out the window. On the radio, Amália Rodriques sings ai, as gentes, ai, a vida  que amargos frutos me dão! Sonho uma árvore florida e apanho frutos no chão. Ai, as gentes, ai, a vida! Que amargos frutos me dão! Oh People in my life, what bitter fruits they give me! I dream of a flourishing tree and catch fruit from the ground. Of the people in my life, what bitter fruits they give me! It’s what he likes about this place, Anton, that is. It’s a personable coffee shop, one that offers each a bespoke experience. It’s what he misses most about this place. He said goodbye so long ago, only to find himself coming again and again, revisiting, visiting, rediscovering, discovering memories forgotten and manufactured that he thought he’d left behind.

“Anton” he hears behind him. He turns and sees Caleb. “I thought you weren’t coming” Anton said, a playful toxicity lacing his voice. “Ha. You should know I always show up, even if it’s two hours late” Caleb laughs at him, delicately mocking Anton’s grievances. Caleb was good at that. He was one of the few who could handle Anton at his most vicious. Then again, few could tolerate Caleb’s hauteur, his pride in disregarding the consideration of others. They agreed one night long ago that theirs was a relationship so volatile that the Devil himself would be loath to take pride in it. Still, however selfish, Caleb inevitably blessed those in his life with impromptu royal audiences, like a tomcat slinking in contemptuously after putting his servants through nine rings of hell worth of anguish. Not that Anton was an angel. Not that many could make sense of Anton. “What’s wrong”? People sometimes asked him, even in the most awkward, vulnerable moments. “Why do you ask”? He’d reply, puzzled, his discontented grimace fixed on his face like the most expensive tattoo.

“How was the flight”? Caleb asked him after ordering a coffee. They hadn’t seen each other in years, since Anton left California in a huff, returning to his native Konstantinsburg. He hated it there even more than California, but pride and finances kept him away, kept him in West Country shared accommodation. He was overqualified, overeducated and underemployed. Not that he cared. Anton hardly cared about much of anything anymore. He had become so used to disappointment and calamity that he was inured by it all, immune, even. Caleb remained sympathetic, a close ally and confidant. As temperamental as they were, they could count on that, they could count on each other and that was something to hold onto.

People wondered about the two lads. Caleb was an open book, someone whose foibles and escapades had become part of the local lore. Anton was a popular source of rumours, sometimes being unusually bold, risqué even before retreating behind an affected innocent, proper mask – one that rarely slipped. Anton feared that mask slipping, of being exposed in his self-imposed exile far from the Madding Crowd. He didn’t really help his case, sometimes making those around him disconcerted when his expression betrayed what they, with some justification, inferred to be a bitter discontentment and ill-ease, a desire to hide in the pleasant tedium of the Costa Geriatrica while longing to be the star of the show, to imbibe the heady, fickle atmosphere of the Golden coast. Even Caleb couldn’t understand Anton’s neurotic contradictions, much as he accepted them.

But is that really important? Are people ever that simple, that straight-forward? Ignore the obvious personality flaws, disorders if you will. Anton and Caleb remained friends, patient with and tolerant of each other. If you overlook the muddied, muddled relationship they were only old friends meeting after a long absence. With the assured reliability of his Seiko chronograph, Anton would fly back to Europe when his allotted two weeks in California came to an end. As always, Anton would assure those around him that life in Britain was really the best of all possible worlds for him, all the while wallowing in a macabre nostalgia for a time, a life, a place that he had left behind and that had changed beyond all recognition.

Lessons

I came back to Canary on a lark. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re bored and feeling morose. The Lachlan Valley School was opened in 1932, that’s what the sign says. I grew up in this school for better or worse, better at the beginning, worse at the end. Devo, the old groundskeeper, let me in. There were no students anywhere, no meetings to interrupt. A former student, graduated years ago, taking a look wouldn’t come to harm in these circumstances.

It’s strange how the most familiar places become strange over time. Each new class, each new group of students leaves its indelible mark. “Amy and Daz, 2017” written in a heart that’s been crossed out with a black marker. “For a good time, call Amy” carved into the side of a toilet stall, a telephone number carved below. I’d happily put $10 on Daz having written it in a pique of adolescent rage.

Looking at the walls and at the worn wood floors, polished but never replaced, puts things into perspective. I left 15 years ago, the floor has been polished at least that many times, the walls have been painted at least 4-5 times. But the past doesn’t go away entirely. The desks remain the same, graffiti from 20 years ago carved in. Declarations of eternal love, defaced by time and the anguished ex-lovers, can’t be easily removed from the bark of trees. The old tables outside won’t easily be replaced. There’s not enough money in the budget for a rural school.

Mrs Jenning’s classroom, room number 5. But it isn’t hers anymore. I met my first love here. The view out the window is the same, but… It’s now Mr McLachlan’s room. Who is he? His picture by the school office door didn’t reveal much. A bland, smiling man in his early 30s, a graduate of the University of Queensland. “How did he end up here”? I thought to myself. But then, sometimes it’s best not to go down those ambulatories of thought. The answer might be simple, a desire for a quieter, predictable life. Or, perhaps, it’s something else… The desperate decision of a man growing embittered by his failure to live up to his expectations, a retreat into a world where he wouldn’t be judged by too high a standard.

Those are the lessons that aren’t learnt from textbooks, editions of which that were published well after my time line the shelves waiting for the new school year to begin. When we’re young, we’re arrogant. We know nothing of pain, only inconvenience. Our cruelty and caprice, our flippant disregard for ourselves and for others comes because we, in a perverse way, know that we’re safe. Our parents support us, they protect us. Well, most of the time they do. We rarely have to fall, only stumble with the implicit assurance that someone will be there to soften the blow. We are cruel to others because we are yet to feel pain, to know what it’s like to hurt. We’re confident in our knowledge and ability because our failures result in inconvenience at worst. It’s when we’re away from these walls, away from this shelter that we start to become human – and when we start to find a way to protect ourselves from the knowledge that the world doesn’t exist for our benefit.

I’ve seen enough of this school. “2:21”. One night in Canary, tomorrow I will go back to Sydney. The streets of Canary haven’t changed. A few people have moved, a few have died. Some have moved in. But has Canary changed? No, I don’t think it ever will. A Gullah calls, a budgie flies past. The scent of eucalyptus hangs in the air. Those are the things you remember, the things you didn’t really find memorable. It’s like the scent of incense at a Catholic mass. It’s a part of the ritual that barges into your consciousness years later. But I must keep looking forward, I must keep going on with my life. No matter how frustrating the present, there was always a reason why one leaves a place behind.

 

Kagibari-ami Taishi.

Think of it if you will… A lad of 24 is walking on the pavement of a West Country county town. “Bother”, he thinks to himself as he realises that the zebra crossing he intended to use is closed – still. It’s been closed for weeks. He had hoped that it would eventually be reopened, but that’s contingent on necessary road work being completed. He keeps walking. In 50 yards there will be another one – this one will be usable. It makes little sense to him, the one zebra crossing that is out of order is the one that connects to the high street shopping area.

He picks up the pace again after the light turns green. It’s a brisk day. The wind is blowing in from the English Channel and a horrible winged mutant rat – a seagull to put it succinctly – is flying overhead. It’s only a few miles to the coast, this isn’t a surprising sight for him. He sticks his hands in his heavy wool jacket’s pockets. It’s 4 degrees, but at least the sun is out. He slows his pace by an antiques shop. It’s open. He goes in. He had looked through its windows many times, but it had always been closed – or almost always been closed. The shopkeeper greets him, but she’s busy with another customer – a woman in her early 60s. He quietly looks around the shop. He sees a plate. It’s 18^th century English Delft.

He raises his hand with a “sorry”. “How much is this”? He asks her. The shopkeeper apologies to the female customer who apologises to both for hogging her time. The shopkeeper takes the plate from the young man. Turning it over, she says “It says £60, but I’ll take £53”. He things for a minute before handing her his Barclay’s Card.

He walks away, his purchase lovingly wrapped in last week’s local newspaper. Something about sheep blocking traffic on the highway is printed on the front page. He turns into a narrow side street. He ducks into a yarn shop. The shopkeeper is sitting with a group of women. They turn to him and greet him. He’s the prince of crochet, they often tease him. The shopkeeper offers him a tea or a coffee. There’s a plate of biscuits on the table. He asks for a Shirley Bassey.

“How’s your scarf coming along”, Karen, a 72-year-old retired NHS accountant asks him. “Brilliantly, I think”… He responds. He places his plate on the table. He removes a bundle of crocheted cloth by it, unravelling it. “I think I missed some stiches”. Karen takes it and inspects it. “Yes, there are a couple missing in this row and there’s one missing here”. The shopkeeper returns and verifies Karen’s account of the crime. “Just block it and stich a few rows on the edge when you’re done” the shopkeeper says. “I can lend you the blocking kit if you need it”. “Thanks. I’ll bring it back next week” he says. They sit together. The older women begin chatting again. He nods his head now and again, but his attention is focused on his scarf. Through a stitch, grab the yarn, turn over, pull the yard through, grab the yarn, pull it through the two loops, repeat.

At Tjörnin

Relatives and old friends observing the three Østergaard siblings, Inge, Oscar and Linus have long silently passed their judgements. Inge, the oldest, was the most ambitious. Oscar, the middle child, was the best looking. The precocious baby of the family, Linus, was by far the most intelligent. Less charitably, they concluded that Oscar had neither much ambition nor much intelligence.  His siblings thought much the same to themselves with the smug satisfaction that Oscar would be oblivious to their less-than-kind thoughts. As is so very often the case, consensus can be wrong.

Oscar completed folkeskole, compulsory basic education, with respectable, but not awe-inspiring, marks. Surprisingly, he plumbed not for a tekniske skoke, technical school, but gymnasium – the higher of Denmark’s late secondary schools. When asked by his gobsmacked parents and teachers why he chose to pursue something so unexpected, he simply said “It should be up to me what I decide to do with my life”. Thinking better than to pursue the matter, they grudgingly accepted his decision.

Oscar muddled through those years in a most unremarkable fashion. His marks didn’t impress and they didn’t depress. His teachers viewed him as a generally pleasant, but unremarkable student. Half the female  and some of the male students, including the captain of the school’s football team who’d never admit to finding any man attractive despite spending far too much time staring at his team-mates in the showers, dreamt of dating him. Oscar just smiled good-naturedly, quietly relishing the attention. Each weekend he went to Vesterbro for his part-time job at Joe and the Juice where he did just well enough to prevent the manager from being annoyed.

A winter holiday at Majorca shocked him out of his good-natured adolescent stupor. A pint or two too much beer and a black eye isn’t much to be proud of, whatever the reputation of the Dane in Sweden might otherwise suggest. For, however remarkably unremarkable as he was, Oscar hated it when people thought the worst of him. The only thing he hated more was seeing the expression of those who, as he knew only all too well, were convinced that their worst suspicions of him were confirmed. Most of all, he dreaded following his parents’ footsteps – the bland domesticity of the truly mediocre whose tubercular dreams grew more wan with each passing year before they finally died.

“Linus”! He called when he heard his little brother coming home. “Hey Oscar”! He said, punching him softly in the arm. “I want to show you something” the older brother told him. “Oh”? Linus asked. Oscar handed him a letter postmarked Reykjavik. The younger brother took it and opened it, reading through it carefully before taking a pause. “You’re moving to Iceland”? He asked at last. “Yes”, Oscar replied.

Oscar chose to forego many of the festivities that surrounded graduation from gymnasium. He was, surprisingly, focused for once. His manager, having no reason not to, agreed to give him a full time position for the summer. “Better a known quantity than a new trainee”, the manager thought. Oscar quietly set his earnings aside. Well, at least the crumbs that Denmark’s tax agency deemed he could keep.

The now thirteen-year-old Linus asked his brother one day in the early days of summer, or what masqueraded as summer in Denmark, “What have you decided to study”? Oscar responded “Environment and Natural Resources”. The mousey Linus was somewhat surprised by this. For the third time people close to Oscar were surprised at the course he chose to pursue. “Surprised that I didn’t choose sport, you little shit”? Oscar laughed, with an almost imperceptible note of sadness as he punched his brother’s side. “No, it’s just, it doesn’t seem like you”. Linus stopped, cut-off mid-sentence by the look on his brother’s face.

Oscar and Linus sat side-by-side, brothers, rivals, blood allies in absolute silence. After what felt like an eternity, Oscar spoke. “I know you call me the ‘daft Balder’. Did you really think I wouldn’t eventually find out? Did any of you think that I was unable to make out what you thought of me? My entire life I’ve been underestimated. My entire life no one seemed to think that I was capable of anything but looking good”. The two fell silent again; Oscar was at the point of tears. Outside, a breeze rustled through the leafy streets of Østerbro. The green leaves swayed like the tassels of a dancer’s dress. “I’m sorry”, Linus said, embracing his brother. Oscar and Linus started crying. For all their misunderstandings, they were always close. They were brothers and they were best mates. Oscar hugged his brother.

A year later, they found themselves sitting side-by-side on a bench at Tjörnin, the Icelandic capital’s picturesque lake. “It’s beautiful”, Linus told his brother. “It is. I’m glad I came to Iceland”. Oscar smiled as he said this; he looked healthier and happier than Linus had ever seen. “Why did you choose to go to Iceland, though”?  Linus asked, not sure if an answer was even needed with the overwhelming natural beauty and Oscar’s new radiance. “I wanted to go off on my own, to see what I could make of myself when no one has any set expectations of me”. The two brothers smiled as they punched each other on the shoulder.

 

Tokyo Sadness

I hate Tokyo. Each time I come here I hate it a little more. It’s so… sterile. There is no peace here. Sometimes I wonder if there is any humanity here at all. Tokyo is the sort of place that can’t be explained, it has to be experienced. No matter how many people are around me here, I feel alone. I feel so, so alone. When I was growing up in the Australian countryside the infamous tyranny of distance sometimes weighed heavily on me. But even then, even when I was alone miles from the next person, I never felt this lonely. At least then I had my own company. In Tokyo my irrelevance is made oppressively clear.

Were it not for work I don’t think I’d come here at all. Sometimes I look around me on the metro. School children who, in Australia, would laugh and show all sorts of cheerful cheek are silent – morose, even. The adults look mass-produced: black hair, brown eyes and the same black business suits. Whenever I can, I leave this place. Even the air here is heavy, a leaden stew of sweat, smog and silent desperation.

In the evenings, after meetings, I slip away to Ueno Park. There’s something about it that gives me space to breathe. At least it isn’t as crowded as Chuo, Shibuya or Shinjuku. In the alleys past the station there are many shops that show a side of this glittering sea of pulsating life that many will tend to overlook. There are the shoe shops with faux patent leather shoes for 1500 yen. There are the shops with cheap, late-model watches of European and Japanese provenance. Then there are the shops that sell cheap, sleazy suits to the legions of university students from the provinces seeking employment.

A memory that will always be branded into the flesh of my consciousness is that of a pair of shoes I once saw. I beg the reader’s charity for setting, kangaroo-like, off on a tangent. In my university days at Sydney I took in a Japanese flatmate. It was rather unexpected. We had several classes together and we hit it off. Hiroshi was his name. He, like many Japanese international students, had little experience of life outside his island nation. Like many Japanese, students or otherwise, the distinctness of Japanese life makes it difficult to adjust to any other setting. I had to laugh when he referred to me –an Australian citizen and resident of that country for all part six months of my life – as a “foreigner”. He was assigned student housing with a flatmate from Korea. Two months into his first term, the combined effects of excess drink, imperfect English and a poor choice of discussion topics – namely history – resulted in my receiving a midnight telephone call. Hiroshi was no longer welcome and needed somewhere to go. I gave him use of my sofa.

That marked the start of an affair of which I will always be slightly ashamed. He was in equal measures loyal and reliant. I was lonely and felt betrayed. In my adolescence I gave myself to a blue-eyed bloke who longed for his beloved Sweden. I despised him and his absence. What I didn’t do was go with him, however much he asked me to. These thoughts flash through my mind sometimes. Moments are like blossoms. They bud and bloom only to be carried away in the wind. No matter how beautiful, they are transient. Then again, isn’t that what makes them so beautiful? The fact that they will never last? Memories, dreams, ambitions, hopes — even entire lives — they come only to go again. There is no promise save that the cycles of life will continue, that all will be replaced.

This is going too far off topic. Forgive me. After seven months together, Hiroshi extended an invitation to stay with him in Japan. On my second visit to Tokyo with my company, I accepted. Like so many other Japanese young employees, he was indifferently paid and overworked. He lived in a rickety, post-war dosshouse at Ikebukuro. I can still smell the mildewed age of that edifice. It frankly should have been condemned. Rather, it would have been condemned had it not been for the seventy-odd boarders who would otherwise have to be housed in places they could ill-afford. In that queer Japanese tradition, shoes were left by the front door. On day I saw a pair of obviously cheap shoes that had been resurrected more than once. I never learnt who owned them and I never saw them again. But I will never forget that. It symbolises something of the struggle that so many young Japanese face.

I was fortunate this time. I was able to book a hotel room overlooking Ueno Park. In the early spring nights the plum blossoms take on a phantasmal quality under lantern-light. This is the time of the year that the elderly undertake that great Japanese tradition, ume-mi, plum viewing. This is the quieter, less known counterpart to the viewing of cherry blossoms – hana-mi – that takes place a month later. Hana-mi is for the young. It’s also become almost forced. Groups of semi-inebriated university students sit about under cherry trees because they feel compelled to do so. No, I have left that part of youth behind. It’s one of the great pleasures of passing thirty and being established in a career. I am growing more naff with the passing of each season and I can find no reason why this is a bad thing. Really, it’s liberating. I’ve paid my dues and can now enjoy an ever more agreeable ennui.

Thirty storeys below me office ladies and salarymen stumble home, past the burn-outs and failures of society. Underneath the road bridges tents stand providing their flimsy protection from Japan’s cold spring nights. It’s 10:20 in the evening. Tomorrow, I will return to Sydney. Tomorrow evening the buskers will stand by the entrances soliciting a few coins in exchange for their songs. Those made redundant will bide their time before returning home, pretending that nothing has changed. A cheap beer or two will provide cover. After work he had to go to a nomi-kai, drinking party. Many know that they will have to, sooner rather than later, take any employment they can find. But for now, saving face is imperative. They simply cannot bring themselves to admit that their employers could no longer keep quite so many people on staff. The vagrants will loiter where they can, people fallen too far for redemption, like Brahmins who ate beef.

I will return in autumn. Arne will be with me. I can’t deny him his wish to be with me after I tore him apart for having left me. Yet he was there. He was always there, even when I refused to accept him. Like the plum tree, he kept his promise to replace that which the wind carried away.  I can’t well play the wrongly-done when he kept his word and I took advantage of someone even more vulnerable. I will have to admit that I was wrong.

Their Mother’s Necklace

Pernilla sits in her favourite armchair watching the sunset while drinking a cup of coffee – Löfberg’s Lila, her standard brew. Summer in Sweden is the best day of the year. Were she not so tired, she would probably have gone out. Considering the circumstances, this would have to do. Her window was open and a mild breeze blew in, rustling a few casually places papers on her table.

Her mobile telephone sounded. “Oh, who is it now” she mumbles looking over to see who had the nerve to disturb her peace. It was her brother, Lasse. “Hello Lars” she says, using the formal version of his name. “Hello Pernilla. You won’t believe what I’ve found”. He answers. “Don’t tell me you’ve found the formula for converting lead to gold” she says facetiously.  Pernilla and Lasse had always had an understanding, an understanding stemming from their slightly skewed sense of humour. “I wish! That way I could finally retire. Oh, never mind, skatteverket would take their share of that”! Pernilla chuckled at the mention of the Swedish tax office, skatteverket, strangely one of Sweden’s most trusted agencies. “Remember mum’s old desk”?

Pernilla paused for a second before asking “Which one”? “The one she moved into her cabin a few years before she died”, Lasse responded. “Oh yes, that one. We never were able to open up all the compartments, were we”? She responded. “I found the key. Pernilla, can you make it tomorrow? There was something in there that I think you should have”. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch. Is that okay”? “Of course, I’ll tell Lotten that you will come”. “Please give your wife my regards and we’ll see each other tomorrow, then”.

After hanging up, Pernilla stood up and walked to her window looking out at over the Esplanade and the boats crossing the narrow strait. She picked up her mobile and telephoned Jiro. “Hey Jiro, it’s me. I need to go to Västra Torup tomorrow, but I should be back before too late”. “Okay, telephone me again when you leave so I can have supper ready for you”. “So kind” Pernilla thought as she hung up. Recently, Jiro had started cooking Japanese meals for her each weekend.

Pernilla was in a cheerful mood the next morning. The summer had been extended to two days this year. After showering and combing her shoulder-length blonde hair, she climbed into her white Volvo V40, turned on the radio and left for the farm where she grew up with brothers Lars and Olle.

As she drove out of Helsingborg, she rolled down her window and got caught up in the moment – one of those glorious, unforgettable moments that life gives us sometimes. The type of moment when we’re caught up in unbridled joy for no reason. She turned up the radio again and sand along with the song.

Kommer du tillbaka, kommer du tillbaka, kommer du tillbaka? För då minns jag vår tid i vinden Kommer du tillbaka, kommer du tillbaka, kommer du tillbaka?

Will you come back, will you be back, will you come back? Because then I can remember our time in the wind. Are you coming back, will you come back, will you come back?

When she arrived her brother’s two dogs – a golden retriever-based mongrel and something that might have, at one point, had an Alsatian sire ran around and barked at her car enthusiastically. “Get away from her” Lasse called out to the two canine miscreants. Pernilla called out over the din “Hello Lasse”. She shook her brother’s hand at the farmhouse’s door. “Hello Pernilla” Lotten said, getting up from the kitchen table. Lotten went to the old cupboard to get a cup for her sister-in-law.

Pernilla, Lotten and Lasse sat around the old kitchen table where Pernilla and Lasse ate together growing up. It was an early-20^th century piece inherited from her grandfather who made it in his small shop. As the two women were drinking coffee, Lasse turned to Pernilla and asked “Do you remember that ugly IKEA vase mum kept as a joke”? “Oh god, that thing”? Pernilla laughed. “It’s gone now, in any case. I forgot to put the book-ends back in their proper places and managed to knock over a few books – and the vase with them”. “It’s no great loss”, Lotten said. “I found two keys in it, they looked like they could fit mum’s desk. After cleaning up the pieces, I went out to see if they worked. They did”.

Lasse stood up and walked to the sitting room where he picked up a small box. Returning to the kitchen, he handed it to Pernilla saying “This should be yours”. Pernilla thanked him as she took it and opened it. “This… This is mum’s pearl necklace”. The image of her mother as a young woman flashed in her mind. “She always looked so elegant when she wore this” Pernilla said when the shock had passed. “Yes. She always loved that necklace. Remember how she told us that she had to save up for a year to buy it”? It was their frugal mother’s one great frivolous purchase.

Coffee and Pastries

Linus Østergaard might be a boy of twelve, but he’s no one’s fool. The lanky, sandy-haired lad sat alone in his room at Østerbro staring at his suitcase. His parents, Pia and Mads, left on their mid-winter holiday to Thailand. The next morning his older brother, Oscar, was to see him off at Copenhagen Central Station before flying off to Majorca on a package holiday. What no one had considered was that Linus could not well look after himself for ten days.

After the aeroplane tickets were booked and hotels reserved, it fell upon that eternal source of mercy – the grandparents – to save the day. “It will be fun”, his parents told him. “Fun for them, anyway” he thought – biting his tongue. He was the third child and the only one of the three who was unplanned. His older sister, Inge was the apple of her parents’ eye. She, along with her Swedish fiancé Åke Sjöström, lived in Hyllie and commuted to Copenhagen for their increasingly high-powered careers.

Oscar was destined for great things. Everyone knew that, except Linus who quietly had his reservations. That blonde beast might have been blessed with the looks of Baldr and the fashion sense of an Italian model, but as Linus knew and everyone else seemed to ignore, he lacked the common sense that the Good Lord promised a beetroot. Linus was simply conceived, brought into the world and left to his own devices.

Linus would have to manage the long train ride from Copenhagen to Skagen alone. His grandmother, Trine, knew to expect him at 2:13 in the afternoon. That is, on the off-chance that the Danish State Railway actually managed to operate punctually.  Much to the chagrin of the long-suffering Danish taxpayer, Danish trains can be compared to functional relics that would not be out of place in a living history museum.

The chances that he would arrive safely, albeit unpunctually, were in his favour and that was no small consolation. Actually, Linus secretly relished the chance to spend time with his grandparents. Trine was an artist who supported herself as a seamstress, painter and craftswoman over the decades.

His grandfather, Sigurd, was a fisherman in his youth who worked in the Danish merchant marine for decades travelling to ports around the world. After an akvavit or two he’d regale anyone who listened with stories of his youthful exploits, after his third or fourth, his transgressions. Linus enjoyed hearing stories about his grandfather’s transgressions most of all.

Linus was woken up by his tablet. Never one to rely on den dristige Baldr, the daft Baldr, as he secretly called Oscar in his head, he set his alarm clock app for six AM – more than enough time to take a shower, eat breakfast and bludgeon his unconscious older brother into wakefulness – or at least what would pass for wakefulness by his standards. The two lads set off together after some hectic last-minute packing on Oscar’s part. Though he’d never admit it, Oscar was secretly appreciative of his younger brother’s precocious self-awareness. And ability to leave the house in time to avoid missing trains, or, more fortunately for Oscar, flights.

“Twenty minutes” Linus said, looking up at the train departures board. “Okay, hold on” the older brother said as he walked to Mad Cooperativet taking his younger brother’s empty water bottle with him. “Here’s something to eat”, he said, slapping Linus affectionately across the back of his head and handing him his filled water bottle. They walked down to Linus’s train together. “We’ll see each other soon, lille klaphat, little idiot, Oscar said as he playfully slapped the back of Linus’s head again.

The two brothers waved to each other as Linus went on his way, Linus retracting all but one of his fingers at the last moment, a mischievous grin on his face – something the handsome blonde figure reciprocated. Whatever their differences, Oscar and Linus felt a great deal of affection for each other.

The weather outside was suitably grim for a Danish winter morning, even the sun struggled to muster enough enthusiasm to make a half-hearted appearance. From Odense on, the train was lashed by a cold rain. Actually, Linus could understand why his parents and older brother were eager to go on holiday somewhere where the sun might actually make a proper appearance. He simply wished that someone would take him along for once, even if he was just a slender, mousey boy who was small for his age.

Somewhere between Randers and Aalborg the ticket inspector, a portly, middle-aged man with a pink, friendly expression plopped down on the seat across from him. “You have a long journey today, don’t you”? Linus replied diffidently “Yes, I’m going to Skagen”. “In this weather”? The older of the two asked, slightly bemused. “My parents went to Thailand on holiday and my brother went to Spain. I will spend ten days with my grandparents”. “Pity that they couldn’t send you somewhere with decent weather”.

The man smiled and said “I’ll be back in a minute” before getting up and asking a few passengers who boarded for their tickets. Linus stared out the window at the windswept trees and heaths. The ticket collector returned with a cup, a bottle of water and a small sponge. “I brought some things from first class for you” he said, laying the loot out in front of the boy. “Thank you”, Linus said, his voice betraying a note of surprise. “Are you from Jutland”, Linus asked him. The ticket inspector laughed and said “Yes. It’s that obvious, is it? I’m from Ringkøbing. You, I take it, are københavner”. ”Is it that obvious”? Linus replied with a wry smile.

”We will arrive in Frederikshavn soon” the ticket inspector told Linus. ”I’ll walk with you to the train for Skagen”. Linus thanked him as the man walked away. After walking into the next carriage, the inspector pulled out his mobile phone. ”Hello, Mette? This is Arnbjørn. We have a young passenger travelling alone. Could you please buy him a hot chocolate? I’ll give you the money after I get him to his connecting train”. After ensuring that all passengers alighted, the ticket inspector returned for Linus and said ”Let’s go”.

As they walked toward the blue train, Mette, a thirty-something brunette with brown eyes, approached them saying ”Hey Arnbjørn. So this is your young passenger” before she handed Linus the hot chocolate. ”This is for you, to keep warm”. As they watched Linus’s train depart, Mette turned to him and asked ”So he came all the way from Copenhagen on his own. How old is he, anyway”? ”He’s twelve, despite his appearance. I felt bad for him. It seems his family went on holiday without him so it’s up to his grandparents to mind him. He’s a nice kid, far smarter than he lets on. How much do I owe you”? ”Oh, don’t worry about it” she said, ”when does your shift end”?

Linus observed the emptiness around him. North Jutland is sparsely populated, save for summers when the half of Denmark that goes on a beach holiday is joined by hordes of caravan-driving Germans pouring across the border like a socks-and-sandals-wearing army. There was something light in the atmosphere here – something clean and bright, despite the rain and wind.

It was something so different, something that couldn’t be seen in Copenhagen with its pulsating buzz, its mass of humanity packed in on a tiny corner of a small island in a small kingdom. Linus felt light, cheerful. Perhaps it was the hot chocolate, but he felt a sense of relief that he was away from his parents and siblings. Looking up, he saw that his train was about to arrive. Outside, there were more and more yellow buildings – the colour of Skagen.

Linus looked up as he alighted. The sky was a veritable battlefield of light and clouds. Unlike Copenhagen with its heavy, grey winter pallor, Skagen was an explosion of pristine light. His trance was broken by a hand on his shoulder. “There you are, Linus”. His grandmother hugged him. “Let’s go, I’m sure you’ve had enough of sitting”. “Hello, mormor” he said, returning her embrace.

He dragged his small suitcase behind him as they set off together along Sankt Laurentii Vej. “How was the train”? His grandmother asked him. “It was fine”, the boy responded. “The ticket inspector gave me tea, a bottle of water, hot chocolate and a snack”. “That’s unusual”, she chortled. “I didn’t expect it, either” he replied. The streets were almost empty; many shops were closed for the season.

Grandmother and grandson turned right and walked along Sveavej to the house she was born in, was raised in and inherited. Her father before her was born and raised in this house, the house his grandfather built as the 19^th century came to a close. It shared its pale yellow colour with so many other houses around it.

Linus knew this house from summers past, when all three siblings and both parents came for summer holidays. In those half-forgotten halcyon days Oscar and Linus had to share a small attic room, something neither of the brothers particularly enjoyed. For these ten days Linus would have this room with its small window overlooking the port to himself. “Welcome, Linus, Welcome” his grandfather said as he rose to greet him. Linus shook his grandfather’s hand as the smells of the house embraced him. Fresh coffee mixed with the scent of kanel snegle , cinnamon buns, baking in the oven, traces of pipe tobacco smoke mingling with birch wood burning in the fireplace.

It was the scent of an old Danish winter – something that you instinctively remember even if it is an experience you’ve never had before. The old man picked up Linus’s suitcase and carried it up the stairs for him, setting it in front of his bed. Linus looked through his window – the sun was vanquishing the clouds, a cold, clear light.

Back in their sitting room, Trine had set the table in front of the fireplace: three cups for coffee, sugar and milk and a small basket of kanel snegle.  “Did you bake these, mormor”? Linus asked. “Heavens no” she laughed, “this is all your grandfather’s doing. I can’t bake, only cremate”. “I didn’t know you could bake, morfar” Linus told his grandfather. “I learnt to bake on the seas” the old man said. “We were homesick and if we wanted anything, we had to learn to do it ourselves. Your grandmother never complained about it”. They say together chattering away, laughing as wood crackled.

“Do you paint”? Trine asked Linus the next day. “I like to paint” Linus said. “Then we can paint together this afternoon, by the lighthouse, if the weather holds” she told him. And that is what they did. Trine packed two easels and sets of water colours with enough paper to make as many errors as the most shameless heart desired.

They drove together in Trine’s ancient Volvo saloon. “I’m not a good painter”, Linus said as they passed the dunes and war bunkers. “You haven’t found your style” his grandmother told him with a knowing smile. She pulled to the side half a mile north of a lighthouse. “This is as good a place as any”, she said as they took out their equipment and set up their chairs on the sand.

A cold breeze blew in from the Baltic Sea as they adjusted their positions. Trine mixed her paints, the delicate colours feebly mimicking what they had before them. Linus stared ahead of him, silently, a dour expression fixed on his face. “What should I paint”? he asked Trine at last. “Paint what you want to see” she told him. And so he did, as the sun started to set.

He painted the colours of the sky, the honeyed light reflecting off the sea. He painted the grass and the driftwood. “It looks clumsy” he said, inspecting his work in the early evening’s dying light. “No, it’s what you thought” Trine said. “The lighthouse is too small, the grass is too tall and the sky hits the ground sometimes”. “The sky always hits the ground, Linus” Trine answered as they packed up their equipment. They drove home together.

The next evening Linus sat with his grandfather watching as he carved a piece of driftwood. “I didn’t know that you had a tattoo, morfar” he told the old man. “Only the one” he said, chuckling. “Did you get it because you were a fisherman”? The boy asked. “No, no” Sigurd said as he put down the knife and turned the piece of wood over and over again in his hands.

The old man traded the wood for a glass of akvavit sitting on the table and took a few sips. “I was in Hong Kong in 1959. We had a few days in the city and the lads and I went exploring. It was my first year in the merchant marine. We saw a tattoo parlour that offered free beers to woo customers. Well, we sat there for at least two hours taking advantage of their hospitality.

They were on to us after a while. The owner came back and slammed a few San Miguel beers in front of us and said ‘These are your last beers, either get a tattoo or get out’. Judging by the menace in his eyes, we knew he wasn’t joking. We looked at each other. If we had had any sense, we would have left quietly before he had a chance to come back. But after at least six beers each, we didn’t have much sense left. We drew lots and I came out with the short straw. When the owner came back, I volunteered my left shoulder for a small, blue anchor”. The old man picked up his knife and the piece of driftwood and started carving again.

Those days blended into each other seamlessly. One after another, under golden sunsets, sleet or pouring rain the endless succession of time continued its relentless pace. Two days before he was to return to Copenhagen, Linus was once again sitting with his grandmother in front of an easel by Grenen, where the Baltic and North Seas meet. Linus looked at the waters, green to the left, blue to the right.

Linus mixed his paints pensively. “I still can’t paint well” he said, with a dispirited tone. “Everyone is always learning to paint” his grandmother told him. “But you paint well” he said. “I paint my subjectivity” she told him. “Your what?” he asked, a little confused. “When you go to school, when you read maths, sciences and history you learn to live in objectivity. When you paint, you learn to show your subjectivity. You paint what you want to see and how you want to see it. Don’t paint a picture as if you were a camera, paint your impression of what you see”.  “But Michael Ancher” Linus said, before Trine cut him off mid-sentence. “You’re Linus Østergaard, not Michael Ancher. Paint like Linus Østergaard. That is who you are and who you are becoming, let Ancher have his style”. Linus accepted this. Or, rather, he couldn’t yet find a superior argument to his grandmother’s.

Linus looked at the old clock sadly. It was his last night in Skagen. He wasn’t excited about the seven-hour trip back to Copenhagen, and he wasn’t keen to return to the life he had almost forgotten. He knew his best mate, Felix, would be happy to see him again and he knew that the Daft Baldr would, despite himself, hug him perhaps a little too hard in an effort to obscure fraternal affection.

His parents, in their way, would be eager to exchange stories and tell of their holiday on the Andaman Sea and give him a few pieces of tat they bought in some dodgy tourist trap. “Your mother just telephoned”, Sigurd told him with a mischievous gleam in his eye.  “Oscar has a black eye that he won in a pub fight. It seems as if he decided to argue the virtues of LFC after a few too many beers with some hooligans from Manchester. Your parents both have food poisoning and barely left their hotel”. The sting of departure was thus dulled in sadistic mirth.

Trine and Sigurd watched as Linus’s train pulled away to Frederikshavn after lunch the next day. They gave him chocolate, kanel snegle, a wedge of cheese, a chunk of ham and some slices of rye bread. They waved, Linus waved, as the train disappeared into the distance.