Page 10 of The Happiness Blueprint
“I’m sorry to have put everyone in this position, but when you reach my age, life has already become short. I hope once you come to terms with it, you will be happy for me, and I guess it can show you that it’s never too late to find love.” Mum looked at me as if wanting to instill some hope.You, too, can find love—even if it’s at my age. Absolutely thrilled at the prospect of waiting until my late fifties to find love in a church choir.Thrilled.
“Who is he?” Saga asked, looking over at me to see how I was reacting.All okay, I smile.Sensible adult reaction over here.
“His name is Inge. He is five years older than me, widowed and kind. He has a house in Spain. We...I’mjoining him there to live full-time. It will be so great for you girls, free holidays in the sun. You’re going to love it.” Mum desperately wanted our approval, and we tend not to be stingy. Sometimes you have to give something you don’t want to, out of kindness for someone you love.
“I will stay in the house, of course, continue my work,” Dad said. “Nothing will change around here, girls.”
“This is what’s best for us,” Mum said. I looked at her to see if she was also reassuring herself.
“We understand,” Saga told her. At times like this we become siblings in the word’s true meaning, andIblend into awe: something is said that either of us could have spoken. Dad stood up and rubbed his hands together as if attempting a physical outlet of the tension in the living room.
“Right, then. Now that that’s out of the way, who would like some coffee? I have cardamom buns.”
You are never too old to mourn when your family home as you knew it is shattered, the point which kept you coming back is moved, split in half between two locations instead of one. So I’ve learned.
I manage to get ready in twenty-seven minutes, and when I open the front door, I find that it’s snowing. When it snows in London, people call in to work pretending their street hasn’t been gritted or their car won’t start. That doesn’t fly in this part of the world. There is a white veil on everything from cars to trees, making the morning appear brighter than it is. The sun is still an hour away from rising, but I can see the path to the car without a light.
Frost is like the clingier, less welcome version of snow. I work at it aggressively with the car window scraper that keeps slipping from my hand. The stiff grass creaks under my feet as I shift my weight from one foot to another, stretching to reach across the windscreen. So far, I have managed to clear some sort of shape resembling a penis. I’m not looking out of a micropenis the whole way to work, so I continue scraping. Fingers numb and catching up with my toes now, which are already starting to feel like they left my body ten minutes into the morning.Great.
I think of the number of times I’ve stood like this. We would drag ourselves to the car in the morning, Saga and I.First one scrapes the window! Not me! Definitely not me.Yet, somehow it was always me.Saga demanded a square be made on her back-seat window so that she could see out.That and the driver’s side was all I had time for before Mum rushed through the door, forgotten water bottles and a collection of keys in hand.Get in!I would peer at the white cover on my window, waiting for it to melt slowly as the heat spread throughout the car. About halfway into the school run, my window was clear and my limbs warmed up enough for my toes to wiggle again.
“Put the car on. It’s quicker,” Dad says now as he walks up behind me, admiring my perfect square. Of course.
We huddle inside the car, and cold and tiredness start to ease as it rolls onto the road and away.
“What did you do before the seat-warming function?” I ask.
“Froze our asses off,” Dad replies.
Our first property is easy to find. I wasn’t sure what to make of it when Dad told me to look out for the gnomes, but as we circle the suburban neighborhood with identical front yards with rhododendron bushes and flagpoles with yellow and blue flags, I see them. The rust-colored brick house with a generous garden and terrace at the back is nestled in between other identical brick houses, but there is a huge difference between this one and its neighbors.
“Wow, what an advantage! They never have to give directions. Can just say look out for the villa with twenty gnomes in the front yard.” The small ceramic men cover the lawn, and we can only just follow the footpath to the doorsteps.
At the doorstep Dad pushes the buzzer. I’m happy he did as they also have a brass semicircle on the door, and I wouldn’t have known which one to go for. I’m standing on the last step while he towers on the second, and I think about the expressionputting your best foot forwardand decide that’s something I should be doing. I take a large step forward with my right, because it’s my dominant one and the one I’d score with in football. This seems to annoy Dad, and he moves to cover half of me so I feel like a small child, a tagalong.
“Dad, I’m meant to be doing the work.”
“Right.” He scoots to the side reluctantly just as the door opens.
“What are you selling? I already bought muffins from the football team.”
“Bathrooms. I’ll be selling you a bathroom today,” I manage at the same time the owner sees my dad clad in gray work clothes. My own set had to be specially ordered and hasn’t arrived yet: a ladies’ size 12 wasn’t in stock.
“Good morning, I’m Peter with Bygg-Nilsson. We’re here to give a quote. Klara here is new and shadowing me today.”
Inside the small, cubicle-like guest bathroom, Dad shows me how to measure, check that the ground is level and determine the condition of the supporting walls. If I had any hope that this might be an exciting job, in line with any interest I may have, the conversation with the man kills it.
“Cheapest possible. It’s just for guests. White tiles will do the job.”
It seems the books on Scandinavian architecture that I brought can stay unpacked in my suitcase for more reasons than one.
Outside, as Dad packs up the measuring equipment, the man walks around inspecting the porcelain figures in his garden with discontent.
“We may have to move some of your...gnomes...before we start work. Some of the boxes and equipment going in need space,” Dad says gently.
“Be my guest. These bloody Santas, can’t get a proper mowing round them,” the man moans.
A lady appears behind him and looks at us with terror.
