Again, not quite...

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It was a form of enchantment. She was back again. Was it an obsession? They had said their goodbyes, but she returned. Was it a mistake?? A? pair of Danish fighter aircraft? zoomed over the Little Belt in a sky that was white. There was a small fishing boat in the waters, but nothing else. Would he be there? In the church? An obstreperous magpie cackled in a squabble with another. There was a couple sat outside the café drinking coffee. It was still warm. Summer was not over. She was wearing a pale blue dress bought in Greece. The tan had stayed. She was in her thirties and English. The cobbled stones were difficult to manage, she had thought of taking off her sandals like she had done in Greece, but there was the danger of dog shit. Some idiots did not like to scoop poop and left it. She had written to him. There had been no reply. It had been out of blue. She wondered if he even remembered, but of course he did. It had not been that long ago had it? He was Danish, a local musician, and a couple of years younger than her. She had seen him play down near the old harbour during one of the cultural festivals. After a couple of their own numbers they played classical reggae including of course Bob Marley. She got up to dance and he spotted her. Gave a charming smile. She was hooked. He had long dreadlocks and was wearing a striped pair of trousers that were from the psychedelic era. He had brown hair and a light wispy beard. He was tall too. During a break he came over to her. He spoke in Danish at first before she told him she was English. The clothes had come from Camden Town, he beamed. Was he a pot head? She thought to herself. “Small world, isn’t it?” “Yes.” That was that.

From that very inane opening, a romance bloomed. Was it romance or sex? Back on the boat she had gone over it in her head. Distance does not necessarily make the heart grow any fonder. It makes one go over things, a little more objectively. First she now remembered a girl, must be in her early twenties who had been in the background. Her face loomed much larger. She wore a frown. A girl with long braided blonde hair,? a? red T-shirt with Che Guevara on it, jeans and showing her belly with an ethnic? piercing. This was his girlfriend prior to that evening. She must have been. Now she had seen her in the periphery of her vision on nearly every occasion. Was she a stalker? No, she was in love with him. As she looked at Esbjerg disappearing, she thought of that girl. What it must have felt to have been in love and then have the object of your love, kiss another. It was stomach wrenching. She pictured her in the toilet sobbing. But it was not as if she had stolen him? He had come to her out of his own free will. He had done that strut of his, with a little flick of the dreads and stood right in front of her. The girl had not rushed up to stop him. On the other hand he had not even registered the girl’s existence. So what the fuck? Another day she saw the girl standing at an ATM machine wearing fake ocelot polyester pants and a black half-sleeve blouse. She was wearing glasses. Obviously a student. She had not said anything, because it was only in hindsight this girl appeared nearly everywhere they had gone. At the time she had not noticed her at all! When drinking her coffee onboard she remembered the first time they had made love. It was the same evening. He smelt of grass, sandalwood, incense and drink. She was wearing a perfume she had bought in Paris. Was she slumming it? What would Mummy and Daddy say? “There goes Penelope again! That’s what an Oxford education does for you!” They were fond of Jeffrey who was a childhood friend and a doctor. “He will do nicely” said Mummy in one of her confidential tête-à-têtes – which had been few and far between in her lifetime. Wumpsies, the nickname she gave her nanny, had been more of a confidant. A cliché? among her class, but a truth. Dear Wumpsies, would have approved, only as far as going on a date. Her father was an Earl. He had one saying “Saddle up and be off with you.” He used it in nearly every way. He wore tweeds when his cousins of the same age wore brand name shirts and jeans. His boots were nearly always dirty from horse manure. After the preliminary groping, something similar to what she experienced at Oxford , he went for gold. They left together to his place which was nearby. It was in a boathouse that had been converted into a one up and one down. He had the top place. There was a swing ladder, which proved a bit difficult in her tight black dress. But he hauled her up, though very nearly losing his grip on her hand. He was in the grass induced giggle mindset. He tugged off his shirt, with a few snags on his dreads to reveal a pale slightly malnourished body underneath. “You need feeding.”?

That was probably the last thing said before the two of them tore at each other as if there were no tomorrow. Afterwards he lay spent on the mattress – looking very pleased with himself. A massive grin on his face. “That was great.”? She kissed him. They lay there looking at the wooden ceiling. The moon which was a crescent provided some light through the skylight. He had blinds drawn on the other windows. “You like the dark?”? “Yes it is soothing.” She thought of her family home, of those broad windows which needed enormous curtains to keep out the light. They had not even talked. It seemed natural. His place was untidy in comparison to what she had seen below. It was not like Jeffrey’s cottage. He was anal and had been since he was a child. She remembered how he would tidy up everything before a servant got a chance. They had servants – that was how big the place was. On the floor were assorted cotton boxer shorts, socks, roll up cigarette tins, empty and half full beer glasses, a withered flower, ornaments from India, including a wooden elephant with one tusk missing, posters of Jamaica, music magazines and scores of DVDS and CDs. There were a couple of guitars too. “By the way, the toilet and shower are in there.”? There was a unit in the corner. It was see-through. “Oh don’t worry I will turn round.” What was she doing here? She took a shower and saw that true to his promise he had turned round. The water pressure was not so powerful as she was used to – though it was much better than at home. When it came to plumbing. Daddy was not one to waste money on these foreign chappies from godknowswhere. She was staying at the hotel near the bridge. She could go. She wanted to have a nice sleep. But he pulled her down to him, she was still wet. For the next week, the time allotted to her by the law firm she worked for in the city, she spent her time in bed with the reggae singer. For the sake of a good night’s sleep, she booked him in at the hotel. He reveled in it. They made quite an entrance at breakfast. Despite his lean look – or perhaps he was genuinely malnourished he heaped on so much food that there were glances from other guests. She did not mind. Daddy at Claridges. Now that was a sight. Despite being intimate with him for a solid week, he never expressed an interest in what was going on in her life. He accepted what he saw, no more. Now that was what she loved. Though there were several things that might need sorting out, if…. Imagine she had actually contemplated that. Silly. There were so many things she did not like about him. He peed standing and talking with her. Once while he was pissing, he broke into the Monty Python song, “Always look on the Bright Side.” She could have murdered him then. But she discovered that many of his friends were infected also with this need to sing such songs that were way past their listen by date. The Danes took it seemed pleasure in their knowledge of British popular culture – and it seemed thanks to the Danish crime novelists shown on British television, the Danes were returning the favour.

Daddy was not one for crime. Mummy had her women’s magazines and the Burlington. She was the snob in the family, always gallivanting around the cultural institutions of which the Earl was some patron or other. Daddy loved one work of art and that was a portrait of an ancestor hanging in the pub in his village. “Wonderful execution that.” He said over a pint. They would love him the Danes especially after being saturated in upstairs and downstairs genre television series. When she was back in the office, she had to prepare for? a high profile libel case. During her degree she had deliberated on which head of law to go for. Crime or civil. Jeffrey’s little brother had gone EU. Imagine that said her Daddy. “EU – what a lumphead – what do you Mother?”? “What’s that dear?” “Jeffrey’s brother gone EU.”? “Oh will he need an operation.” The conversations were full of so many non sequitars that it was amazing she could hold a conversation. Not that they had talked much. He spoke in Danish a lot to his friends, and that included the mysterious girl with glasses. The pace of work was fast. The boss wanted results just like that. Thanks to the new technology she did not need to go through tons of law reports – it was available online. In this case, a celebrity chef who was connected with a baking television series had been accused of stealing a recipe for a cupcake from one of the would-be contestants at the auditions. It had made headlines. She was herself not so sure about the intellectual property rights regarding cupcakes, but she discovered with the assistance of a junior researcher at the firm that the recipe for the cupcake had been published a decade ago. It was not original. The chef had claimed he had based it on a recipe he read years ago. She telephoned the magazine – brought in the chef and told him the news. The newspaper published a retraction and compensation was paid – to go to a charity. All over a cupcake.

When she got to the church. It was all boarded up. There was no ingress. She was disappointed. Where was he? Did the girl reclaim him? She sat on a bench and thought to herself. It was stupid. Marry Jeffrey and be done with it. Jeffrey the safe bet. He on the other hand who stood pissing and singing Monty Python songs, was Danish and had no future. How could she keep her job? She was thinking this. Seriously. Was it the romance or the sex se missed? He had never been romantic had he? There were some gestures. Stolen flowers from a garden. A banana from a supermarket. Tokens. There were I love yous said. He had been attentive to her sexually. There was all that. But there was the girl. That damn girl. She was thinking of her, when she appeared wearing the same ocelot pants and blouse. “Hi.” They had never ever spoken before. “You been waiting long?” “No just got here.”? “Finn is waiting for you.” “He is?”? The girl pulled her by the hand. “He has spoken about you all the time.” “He never wrote.” “He never does anything. He is so lazy, I should know – I’m his sister.” “His sister?” “Yes – why did you think I was his girlfriend?” “A matter of fact I did.” “A lot of people make that mistake.” The girl seemed oddly to like that misapprehension. “Why don’t you come to our place.” “Your place?” ?“Oh didn’t Finn tell you, I have the apartment on the ground floor.”? She was shocked. “You mean you live? in the floor below.”? Then all those evenings of love-making passed before her in her mind’s eye – and all that time, his sister was below. Listening. Listening to Finn fucking her. She felt dizzy. “Would you mind terribly, tell Finn I shall come round later – I am not feeling so bright – not since (she made it up on the spot as she did in court) – Greece – too much sun.” “Oh dear – I’m sorry. “ As she left her to walk toward the hotel, she could swear she heard a giggle.