This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

36

I was sleeping a bit better at night. I’d found a technique of sitting up yawning for an hour before going to bed. I let fresh air into the bedroom, and when I got under the covers I repelled intrusive thoughts by saying ‘Right you are’. I still kept waking up a lot in the night, though. As soon as I found myself thinking the thought that I was awake, I knew I might as well get up. I went and got a glass of water or a piece of bread and sat in the front room looking across at the station. Sometimes there was a light on in the flat, I took it for granted it was Knud who was up. He had so many worries about his future. In principle he would have given his girlfriend whatever she wanted, she’d always been there for him one hundred per cent, she’d literally saved his life, he said. She’d fetched him home from Cosy Bar when he’d passed out in a corner and had lost his shoe. The biggest problem was her coldness, he said, she could be so cold. His own body was burning hot, it was one of his best attributes. He could really warm my bed up, usually it was freezing. When I was on my own and couldn’t sleep, I carried the duvet into the utility room and draped it over the boiler. Then I would lean up against the radiator in the front room and sit in the dark looking out. One night I saw a movement over by the bushes in the light from the lamp post. I put my bread down and went and opened the door. I padded a little way down the path in my bare feet, I was just about to say something soppy. Only it wasn’t Knud’s white dressing gown, this one was green, a little puff of smoke curled in the air around it. His girlfriend was standing with a cigarette, she heard me and turned round.

‘Oh, hi,’ I said.

‘Hi,’ she said, and took another drag.

I didn’t know what to pretend I was doing there on the garden path. I breathed in and out. My breath was white, the air was so cold it hurt inside my nose. I made to go inside again, but then she spoke to me.

‘I don’t smoke,’ she said.

‘Oh, right,’ I said.

A few moments went by. I looked up at the sky. There wasn’t much to see.

‘I can’t sleep,’ she said after a bit.

‘Me neither,’ I said, but she didn’t seem to be listening, she closed her eyes.

‘I’ve got to be at work in four hours, we’ve got performance evaluations, I’m absolutely knackered,’ she said.

She had pyjama pants on under her dressing gown and a pair of furry boots with suede laces, I’d got some the same that I’d bought on the Strøget.

‘That must be hard on you,’ I said, a bit indistinctly, I had to clench my teeth so they wouldn’t start chattering.

‘Anyway,’ she said as if she was about to go, only then she stayed put. She took a drag on her cigarette then tossed it away.

‘I’ve got the same boots as you,’ I said.

We both looked at them, she didn’t answer. She gathered her dressing gown. I was frozen stiff by this point. I ventured a smile.

‘Well, I’d better go back in where it’s warm.’

‘I’m sorry if I gave you a fright,’ she said.

‘No, it’s all right, you didn’t.’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Don’t worry about it, really.’

‘Okay.’

‘Right you are,’ I said with a nod, then turned and went back in to what passed for warmth. I took the duvet off the boiler and scrambled into bed. After a long time the Gedser train came clattering through, so it was half past five. I got up and made toast and put some coffee on. I looked across at the flat. At half past six a light came on, first in the living room, then in the kitchen, then after that someone opened the bathroom window. At quarter past seven the light went off again and another one came on downstairs in the ticket office. I fell asleep at about half past eight and woke up well into the afternoon, but it didn’t matter. I had no plans.