Helle Helle - This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

‘Let’s see what you’ve got, eh?’ she said, and then the tears came, and she laughed, and opened the bag with one hand and peered inside. ‘Gingerbread creams! You’ve not spent all your money, have you?’ she said, dabbing her cheeks with her forearm and smudging her new cardigan with mascara in the process. She rubbed it, and made it worse.

‘Oh, look at me,’ she said and sniffed hard again. ‘I’ve been wanting to look nice. What a lovely job you’ve made of the table. It’s been such a long day, and I’ve been so looking forward.’

‘Do you want me to do your feet?’ I said.

‘Ah, would you? No, you mustn’t, not now. You must be dead tired.’

‘I’ll get the bowl. You sit down over there,’ I said, and she stood up, her mascara had run under her eyes as well.

‘Talking about dying, do you remember Riborg?’ she said with her feet in the hot water, it was a story that always cheered us up no end. We ran into Riborg on our bikes one summer at Ganges Bro, it was a Sunday lunchtime and we’d been out picking strawberries. It had nearly been the death of us, the temperature was almost thirty degrees. We’d cycled eighteen kilometres and the only thing we could think about was getting home and having something to drink, we were getting ratty with each other. Riborg was standing there with her bike just before the viaduct, there was a pillow in her wicker basket.

‘There’s Riborg. Hello, Riborg,’ Dorte called out as we rode past, but Riborg waylaid us.

‘Wait a minute, Dorte, where are you going?’

We got off our bikes and wheeled them back. She asked about the strawberries. We asked about the pillow, she was just taking it over to someone she knew.

‘I lost Jørgen, you know,’ she said, and Dorte did, which might have been why we’d just carried on at first. Not that Dorte couldn’t talk about death, but there was a long illness to get through before that: failed courses of treatment, an acute kidney infection, frothy urine, a change of medicine that gave renewed hope, then the relapse, fluid retention and failing strength, and then finally the end, as unexpected as death always is, even when you know it’s coming, on the kitchen floor at five o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon. Just before dinner. I looked at Dorte and saw the beads of sweat on her upper lip, she was white as a sheet and leaned against her bike for support. Then we got the story all over again, only from a different point of view, starting with Jørgen’s physical form before the first and second periods in hospital. Dorte dabbed her lip with the back of her hand, she stood there swaying. I reached out for a big strawberry in her basket and gave it to Riborg. Riborg ate it. It was a good one. I gave her another and her narrative tailed away. We were able to get going again after that. Dorte always thanked me for that move with the strawberry. Riborg, love, she’d been about to say. Death’s a terrible thing, but it’s time you got a grip.

She sat with her feet in two plastic bags under the table, I’d put the lotion on thick. She groaned when I rubbed it in, her legs were all stiff from her long days in the shop. After the mulled wine I did her nails, she picked a baby-pink polish that matched her slippers.

‘Not that there’s much point. Hardy won’t be seeing my toes much longer anyway,’ she said.

‘What’s he going to do?’

‘He doesn’t know he needs to do anything yet, I’m afraid.’

‘Are you?’

‘Am I what?’

‘Afraid for him.’

‘No. I’m not actually. It’s not that at all. It’s more me, I’m forty-five now, aren’t I?’

‘I never think of you as being that old.’

‘I don’t either, mostly. No, Hardy’ll be all right. He’s got Samson.’

‘Do you want a ginger snap?’

‘Thanks,’ she said. She bit off a tiny corner, she could hardly swallow it.

Her feet slid around in her shoes from all the lotion. We had a laugh about it and she had another cigarette for the road out on the step. The sky was pitch black, the temperature was down to freezing. In the gap between the flats we could just see the Christmas garland on the main street picked out by the street lights. It swayed faintly.

‘There’s a guy who works over at the station. In the ticket office,’ I said.

‘Over there?’

‘Yeah. But he lives with someone.’

‘That never stopped anyone growing fond.’

‘I know. But I don’t think I’m that fond, that’s the trouble.’

‘Well, that’s no good. What a pity. Are you sure?’

‘I think so.’

‘If in doubt, then leave well alone. You have to feel it, right down to your fingertips.’

‘Not all the time, surely?’

‘Oh, yes. All the time.’

‘Who says?’

‘I do. So it has to be true, doesn’t it? Ha. Take care of yourself, won’t you, love?’ she said, and flicked the end of her cigarette onto the lawn. We hugged.

‘Thanks for doing my feet. Lovely that, isn’t it?’ she said with a nod at the picnic basket.

‘Some people from Copenhagen left it behind.’

‘I’m glad you’ve made friends there,’ she said, and smiled. She stepped on her cigarette end on her way over the grass and bent down to pick it up. She turned and waved before getting into the van.

The summer holiday came to an end. Lars was back at college, only he couldn’t get up in the mornings, he kept putting the alarm forward. Other times he turned the clock on its face and pulled the duvet up over his head. I squirmed out of the foot end and opened the balcony door. I put an old T-shirt dress on and went to the kitchen, I made an omelette from a couple of eggs and a sliced tomato. I carried it back into the room together with the coffee and put it on the table, then sat and waited for him to wake up. Every now and then I picked up the alarm clock and made it go off in his face. That really annoyed him. He pushed my arm away and sat up on the edge of the bed.

One Sunday morning over breakfast I told him I was going to write a letter to Per and explain everything. He kept shaking his head.

‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ he said.

‘Why not? It’s not that bad, surely?’ I said. I touched his neck beneath his ear, his skin was so delicate there. I thought about the word jawline. He always smelled so nice after he’d slept.

‘It’s worse, it makes me feel ill just thinking about it,’ he said, and slapped his hand down on the table. His voice was strangled, emotion welled in his throat. But it was me who started to cry, his hand gave me a fright, it came down right next to mine.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said. We leaned our heads together. We talked about what we could do. There had to be something. I said we needed to get out together, if only for a little walk down the street.

‘You’re right,’ he said, and a bit later we got dressed. It took us ages, the weather was changeable and he couldn’t decide whether to wear shorts or long trousers. I made myself up in front of the balcony door, pink lipstick and a bit of mascara.

‘Should I take some money with us?’ he said.

‘What for?’ I said at first, but then the next minute:

‘You could do, I suppose. We might want something.’

‘I don’t think I will,’ he said.

‘Don’t then,’ I said.

We went downstairs and out through the yard. The little girls were playing with a watering can. I smiled at them.

‘What great watering,’ I said, and they looked up at us and smiled back, one of them lifted the watering can up in front of her.

Out on the street we stood for a bit, unable to decide, then went left towards the square. There weren’t many people out. A young guy came out of the baker’s with two big bags and disappeared round a corner. We didn’t speak, all we did was walk. After the station I took his hand, I even began to swing our arms, only he resisted. The wind was chilly, but the sun had come out. I dragged him over to a bench and we sat down. The sun shone in our faces, I closed my eyes. I could hear his breathing. We got up again and went round behind the square through the little lane. A fat woman stood outside a crooked house in her slippers, it was the woman who’d come to my rescue, only without her moped this time. She smiled at us.