The woman leaves me to slip into a white cotton robe and I sink onto the heated bed. There’s something resembling a big shiny pebble on the shelf over there making clouds of white steam and I’m so warm and, frankly, shattered, I’m feeling sleepy already. Nari will be kicking herself that she didn’t come, though I doubt she’s regretting her choices right this second.
The therapist returns, wheeling a little cart loaded with products in elegant packaging, and for the next two hours I’m wrapped up, smoothed, scrubbed and soothed, and it is wonderful. And I almost drift off entirely in an aromatherapy-induced haze except I find I can’t switch off that last little bit of my brain, the bit where Stellan lives rent free, an emotional squatter, sending out constant reminders of how things were yesterday when we were together.
I’m trying to shut out the memories of the sweet, familiar feeling of sinking into Stellan’s kiss and the safe, secure warmth of his arms around me and the sense that maybe we actuallyweremeant to be reunited here at his Lapland home, and maybe wedohave something as elemental and irresistible as the magnetic pole pulling us back together.
But, I remind myself, he isn’t here. He’s somewhere nearby, sure, but he’s not with me. And it’s Christmas day.
I’ve always said that if someone wants to be with you, theywillbe with you, and nothing will keep them away. Like when you bump into someone in the street you haven’t seen for years and you both say, ‘We reallymustmeet for that drink’, secure in the mutually acknowledged, but never voiced, understanding that, thank goodness, it’s never actually going to happen.
Was Stellan’s hurried cry of, ‘I must go, I’ll see you again,’ as he rushed from my cabin yesterday, how this was always going to end? A repeat of the first time he disappeared out of my life without a trace? I could have sworn yesterday as we kissed in the kitchen that he’d be staying the night and that we’d be together today; that he wouldn’t let anything come between us, especially when I’m only here for another, what, twenty hours?
I thought all of this over last night after he left, when I didn’t get to sleep until gone four and I’d cried like a teenager and used up all my tissues. I’d stared up at the snow on the glass roof above my big empty bed and it had struck me; maybe I am guilty of getting over invested in things, of being infuriatingly intense. I know Nari said this morning she thinks it’s Stellan and his commitment issues and not my over-enthusiastic investment in him that’s the problem, but I’m unconvinced.
I went through it all last night, thinking about my long history of liking things passionately to the exclusion of all other interests, and how each new obsession fades in time and I move on.
There was that twelve-month period after I met Cole where, inspired by a sunny week in Madrid together, I’d shelled out for Spanish lessons and a weekend at a Flamenco dancing residential school in London, and just as I’d mastered the art of making oversized dishes of seafood paella, I totally lost interest in all things Spanish and switched my obsession to gardening our little plot at the back of the Love Shack.
It had come as a huge surprise to me to discover I had green fingers and could grow my own spuds in a bucket and train tomato plants up canes by the back door, and I’d listen toGardener’s Question Timeevery Sunday whilst deadheading hanging baskets of stripy petunias and sipping tea from a National Trust gift shop mug that told everyone I was the ‘Head Gardener’. I let the whole thing go to seed after a few seasons when I realised Cole never joined me out there in what was supposed to be our own little Eden.
And, yes, there was a time in my adolescence when I balanced twin loves for the myths and legends of Scandinavia and a powerful interest in the back catalogue of Kate Bush, to the extent that I bought a pair of replica Viking amulets off eBay and, in imitation of my new musical idol, I wore a black fringed caftan and no shoes for the entire summer of 1998 to complement myWuthering Heightsfeathered hair and general whimsical demeanour.
And then there was my Zumba phase, quickly passed over for the more intense PowerZumbaBlast: those lasted a good three months each.
Granted, some of my obsessions haven’t been quite so healthy, since we’re on the subject. There was the winter after Stellan left where I lived off snack boxes of raisins and hot chocolate (a whole jar of cocoa powder a day at its peak – the kettle was forever boiling), and then there was this past autumn after losing Cole, and Barney, where I watched nothing but Norwegian thrillers and true crime documentaries back to back and it all got a bit noir. And we already know about my recent shopping channel exploits. Some of those packages are still lying unopened in the bottom of my wardrobe. I haven’t a clue what’s in most of them.
But Inever oncefollowed this pattern of obsessive love through to exhaustion and disinterest with actual human beings. I won’teverdump you. I mean, sure, if I’m in your inner sanctum of friends, I’ve got your back no matter what, and if I’m your girlfriend you’ll get my passionate, all-or-nothing commitment, but that’s because I’m nice, not nuts. At least, that’s what I thought until this week. Stellan’s got me reassessing everything, and it kept me awake all last night as the sickening realisation dawned.
Looking back to 2004 and the few short weeks we were together that autumn, I saw that I really hadn’t thought of anything but Stellan and what time his lectures would be done for the day, and what we’d be doing that night, and how long we’d have together before he went to class or to see his friends. And Ididneglect my uni pals and flunk my exams and forget to call my parents for two months solid. It all seemed kind of normal back then, and I bet I wasn’t the only girl doing it. But it’s no surprise I scared Stellan off.
You can put it on my gravestone: Sylvie Magnusson:Didn’t do things (she liked) by halves.
Anyway, I’d got up this morning with crusty, tired eyes from crying and a headache from dredging up all the old memories and analysing them until I couldn’t think straight, and I’d made a promise not to spoil Nari’s Christmas morning by letting her see that I was actually really bloody miserable and not at all festive.
It was me who insisted we come to this resort, after all. We could have taken Stephen’s other option, but oh no, I was dead set on a chance encounter with the ex I once obsessed over, and who, if I’m honest, I never really got over. Now here I am, thirty-four years old and stuck in a tragic teenage love story time warp, while Stellan’s in the real world, sensible, serious and successful. No wonder he’s avoiding me, laying low until I leave his resort tomorrow.
Can this therapist see there are tears trickling out the corners of my closed eyes? I try hard to relax and clear my mind and not let last night’s crushing realisation that I am in fact a lifelong boiler of bunnies and overly obsessive fangirl spoil my spa experience. But the more I try to clear my mind, the more I hear it: Stellan’s voice saying, ‘I was bad for you. I was the reason you were failing uni, I was a distraction.’
He wasn’t a distraction, he wasn’t ever bad for me. I’m the bad one. I’m the obsessive. I’m the reason we can’t have nice things.
I try to channel all of this horrible energy into putting on a convincing performance of looking peaceful and thoroughly enjoying myself, solely for the benefit of the therapist’s feelings. Finally, she gives my shoulders one last smooth over, turns the lights even lower and cocoons me in warm blankets. I hear the door close as she leaves me alone to inhale the perfumed steam in the air, and ah, there’s the whale music! Last night’s sleeplessness catches up with me and I begin to sink into a strange, cosy slumber, spoiled only by my awareness of a frosty loneliness inside me that won’t thaw, no matter how faultless and appreciated my Christmas Day singleton spa gift is.
‘Hello tiny one, I’ve got a little something here, just for you,’ I tell the tumbling, clambering puppy.
The moment I unlocked the door to the dog sheds Toivo had wriggled his way out from beneath the pile of sleeping siblings and padded over to the edge of his little enclosure, whipping his tail from side to side. I like to think he recognised me.
I’d called out a polite, if awkward and quintessentially English, ‘Yoo-hoo? Anyone home? It’s only me,’ in case Stellan’s staff or some other tourists were here, but no one replied, even though the lights were on and the big door at the back of the shed was open with dogs running around in all directions, coming and going as they pleased.
‘I’ll only stay a minute, anyway,’ I told myself as I settled beside Toivo on the floor of the shed. ‘Have yougrownsince yesterday?’
I feed him the croissant scraps and a piece of buttery toast that I sneaked from the buffet for him and he chews greedily as though he’s never been fed in his life. When he’s done eating, I lift him onto my knee and ruffle his furry neck.
‘Merry Christmas, little guy. I don’t suppose you’re all that bothered about Christmas, are you?’
I cast a glance around me, just in case someone’s come in and mistaken me for an easily distracted dognapper who’s taken leave of her senses. Still nobody here, so I kiss Toivo’s pink nose and tell him he’s got the best schnozz in all of Lapland, and he seems pleased with that.
‘So what did Father Christmas bring you, then?’ I ask him, as I look into his little enclosure, spotting a handful of chew toys that weren’t there on my last visit.
I reach for the closest thing to me, a toy monkey, and show it to Toivo who immediately goes into overdrive, wanting me to tug it around while he clings to it with his needle-sharp puppy teeth.
