Paige Nick - Wrong Knickers for a Wednesday - A funny novel about learning to love yourself

Accordion music blares from the car stereo, and my stomach lurches at David’s stop–start driving. Dania doesn’t appear to notice, even though she keeps jerking forward, her collarbone straining against the seat belt. She’s alternating between singing what could be Swedish lyrics and volleying questions at me about South Africa. I think she’s muddled us up partly with Uganda and partly with Zimbabwe, but I’m too exhausted to correct her.

‘Do you see often lions at home?’ she asks.

‘No,’ I respond.

‘I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. You belong to a tribe, yes? We have nothing like that at home in Sweden. They say it’s beautiful in South Africa. But the crime …’ She ticks her tongue against the back of her teeth.

After twenty-five minutes on the highway, the landscape changes and we weave through busy, narrowing streets. I finally catch a glimpse of my first canal. It looks dark and oily, but also somehow rich, old and majestic at the same time.

David finally fishtails the car onto a cobbled street, shadowed by tall but surprisingly narrow stone and brick buildings that slant up into the sky.

‘I’ve never seen so many bicycles,’ I say. They stream around us, ferrying women, children and dogs, even families of four, in wagon-like trailers and bicycle back-seats. David almost takes out a dozen of them, making me yelp out loud a few times, but neither he nor Dania notices.

‘You find parking, kära,’ Dania says, opening her door before he’s stopped the car fully. ‘I’ll take Rihanna up, show her around and meet you back at the club, ja?’

I clamber out of the car, grateful for solid ground, which after fifteen hours in transit and the car ride with a clearly blind Formula 1 wannabe, doesn’t feel all that solid.

A motion-activated light clicks on with an electric clunk as Dania steps through the front door of the building ahead of me, revealing an ancient wooden staircase. It’s so narrow I don’t know how a more horizontally challenged (i.e. fat) person would make it up. Squeeze up sideways? Live somewhere else? The stairs aren’t just narrow and creaky; they’re also as steep as an advanced-level ski slope. I have to clutch the banister with one hand and lean forward as I follow Dania, my suitcase thunking up every step behind me.

Dania unlocks a door at the top of the first flight. She’s not even out of breath, and I’m puffing and panting my way up. It takes me so long to heave myself and my bag up the stairs that the motion sensor light switches off, plunging the stairs into darkness. Dania has to wave her arms to turn it back on again. When I catch up with her, we step into a large living area, with high ceilings and wooden floors. The meaty smell of other people’s cooking permeates the air.

The lounge is simply decorated, but with so much furniture that it reminds me of the Big Brother house on TV. I count three enormous couches. Magazines in various languages are strewn on each of the four coffee tables, as well as a scatter of empty mugs, bottles of nail polish in every colour, emery boards and a hairbrush. The street-facing windows are draped with blue denim curtains and look out onto the canal below.

‘It’s a … a … beautiful flat,’ I say. It’s not really what I’m thinking, but manners prevail. I wonder who stayed here before me. They haven’t left it very tidy for the new tenant.

‘Good. We hope you’ll be very comfortable here, ja? This is your new home and you must treat it as your own. As a fellow performer, I know how hard it is being far away from home. Discomfortable, really. But if you ever need to talk to us, David and me, we are here for you, like family people. Now we show you the kitchen, ja?’

It’s not actually a question, but her voice naturally rises at the end of all her sentences. It must be a Swedish thing. I follow her into the next room, where three stoves are lined up against one wall. There are also two microwaves and three fridges. It seems a little excessive. The smell of unfamiliar cooked food is more pungent in here. Cabbage and something that makes me think of boiling sheep heads.

‘You’ll find your name on a shelf in the cupboard and one in a fridge for your groceries. Word of helping, don’t touch anyone else’s shelf. These girls are thin and hungry, food is important, and it’s a quick way to make enemies.’

‘Girls?’ I blurt out.

‘Ja, sure, the girls,’ Dania says.

‘What girls?’

‘The other performers. The girls who live here.’ She gives me a curious stare.

‘Ohhh, of course. The other girls,’ I say, trying to sound casual. Effing, effing Natalie! First I’m performing on my first night, next I’m living in a communal house with goodness knows how many other women. I should have grilled Natalie more closely before I agreed to any of this madness. What did I think, that I’d have a whole apartment to myself? That was just naïve. The enormity of what I’ve agreed to do strikes me, and I have to put my hand down on the sticky kitchen counter for balance. Not only am I going to have to pretend to be someone else on stage, but where I’m staying as well. I’m going to have to perform – as Natalie being Rihanna – twenty-four/seven. This is completely insane. I gnaw at a fingernail, trying not to panic.

‘It’s not always so quiet here, like this,’ Dania is saying, oblivious to the fact that I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. ‘The girls are all at the club early today for spraying tan. Winter problems. Come, we continue with the touring.’

I traipse down a corridor behind Dania, wiping my sticky palm on my leg and taking deep breaths. She pushes open a door to a small, cluttered bathroom.

‘Bathroom, ja?’ she says, her voice businesslike.

I follow her back to the lounge.

‘There’s no phone. We did once try, but with calls to Croatia and Estonia, it’s difficult to manage the bill. There is Wi-Fi limitlessly though, so you can be in touch with all your people at home. The code is on a piece of paper, stuck to the side of that cupboard, ja.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, my lip trembling.

‘You are from a big family, ja?’

‘No. It’s just me and my older sister. Our parents died some years ago in a car accident.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Dania says, ticking her tongue against the back of her teeth again and giving me that look everyone gets when you tell them you’re an orphan. Pity mixed with discomfort. People don’t know what to say. Which is fine by me; there’s nothing you can say.

‘What about a boyfriend?’ Dania asks, reaching for my hand and pulling it towards her to examine the naked ring finger. ‘Or children?’ Clearly this woman has no personal boundaries.

‘I have a fiancé,’ I say. ‘His name’s Lucas. He’s a teacher.’ Like me, I almost say, but stop myself just in time.

‘How does he feel about you being here?’

‘He’s … ummm … He’s supportive and excited.’

‘This is unusual but good. And you have left Africa by yourself before, kära?’ she asks.

‘Not since we came back to South Africa from exile, when I was a little girl,’ I say.

‘You will get used to it. I should know. David and I have been in showbiz for over thirty years, ja. Travelling, performing everywhere. Who would you say we look like?’ she says, brightening and landing both hands on her hips in a theatrical pose.

‘I don’t know …’

‘Guess,’ she says, sticking her neck out towards me so I can examine her features more closely.

‘Really, I have no idea. Sorry.’

‘Go on, just one guesses. I give you a hint; David and I have the most successful double act in Sweden for over twenty years. Who do you say I look like?’