This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

22

The library didn’t have anything on sleeping problems and I couldn’t bring myself to ask if they would order something from another branch. I wandered round the shelves. The librarian was on the phone at her desk, she was having a long and convoluted discussion about storage. She scribbled on a piece of paper with a biro while she spoke. Every now and then she held the pen up in front of her eyes and rolled it between her fingers. Her legs stuck out from under the desk. I recognised the socks, they were the same ones they had in the bookshop window. I found a handbook on literature, only it turned out to be reference only. Instead, I took out a stack of women’s magazines and a book of poetry by a girl from Reersø. Then I went out again.

There was a commotion in the street. A lorry from the council had stopped in the middle of the road with its exhaust fuming, it looked like the driver had gone to the chemist’s. Behind it was a rubbish truck that couldn’t get past, two irate binmen stood in their overalls agreeing with a pedestrian that it wasn’t on. The pedestrian’s dog had seen something, it was barking madly and straining on the lead. A man in a car blew his horn rhythmically. At the bakery, the assistant stood watching on the step outside. I stopped at the window and looked at the eclairs and the puff pastries with cream.

‘Be right with you,’ she said, and opened the door for me. I hadn’t actually thought of buying anything.

‘What a kerfuffle,’ she said.

She was about the same age as me. It looked like she might have worked there for quite a while, the way she rearranged the teacakes and brushed away the crumbs. I decided on a pastry snail. As I put the change in my purse the door opened and a stout woman in cropped trousers came in with some difficulty. She leaned over the counter.

‘How much are your Linzer tortes?’

‘Five fifty.’

‘How much are your raspberry slices?’

‘Five fifty as well.’

‘In that case, I think I’ll have a raspberry slice.’

The girl grabbed the one at the front with the tongs and put it in a paper bag. She held the bag open, the woman was still looking.

‘How much are your Napoleon hats?’

‘Six kroner.’

‘Six exactly?’

‘Yes.’

‘In that case, I think I’ll have a Napoleon hat as well.’

‘Is it all right in the same bag?’

‘Is what all right?’

‘The bag. Is it all right in the same bag?’

‘I should think so. I don’t see why not,’ the woman said, and began searching for the right change. I went out with my carrier bag from the library and my pastry snail. The man from the council got into his lorry outside the chemist’s, tooted his horn and pulled away with the rubbish truck and the rest of the traffic, a pickup and a pensioner on a moped, following on behind. The procession moved slowly down Østergade. I walked home thinking about the girl at the baker’s and what kind of life she had, that and the word kerfuffle. When I came round the corner opposite the station my mum was getting out of the car in front of my house. I turned back quickly towards the pub and stood behind the fence at the back entrance. There was a voice in the kitchen talking about potato salad, the window was wide open. A man came out with an overfilled bin bag. He nodded politely. I walked over to the supermarket car park, then took the short cut round the side of the station. The car was still outside the house, but my mum was nowhere to be seen. I stood behind a tree for a bit, then scurried round the back of the station all the way to the end of the platform. I stepped behind the bushes. It was half past one. The trees on the other side had turned yellow and red, every little gust of wind sent leaves fluttering onto the tracks. I waited a quarter of an hour before going back. The car was gone by then. My mum had pushed a note through the letter box and left a pack of coffee in the shed.

I couldn’t enjoy that pastry snail. I sat in bed and nibbled at it while flicking through the magazines from the library. One of them had an article about lethargy entitled ‘slugs and snails’. I tried to remember the rest of the rhyme but couldn’t, all I could think about was the coincidence of snails. I made coffee out of my mum’s coffee. I’d run out of milk so I had to sweeten it more than usual.

In the evening I hung a big bath towel and a sheet up in front of the windows in the front room and tried on all my clothes. I carried the mirror in from the hall. I painted my nails and decided I needed a new look and a new way of thinking and walking. I even thought I might put a piece together for a newspaper, I just didn’t know what about. There was nothing in particular I was good at, except perhaps writing lyrics for party songs, but I didn’t even do that any more. Instead, I wrote a list of things I ought to see and do in Copenhagen. I was full of good ideas. For once, I fell asleep straight away, but then woke up again far too early. The front room looked like an explosion in a second-hand shop, and I’d got nail varnish on the lamp. I tidied up and got dressed. I was ready before six. I caught the five-past-nine.