Dear Lily
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Synopsis
The must-read book of 2019! Equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking, fans of Jojo Moyes, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and One Day in December will love this special novel by Drew Davies.
Dear Lily, It's me, Joy, your older sister. I thought I'd start a new tradition of letter writing – now that we're long distance. On the plane over here, I began to cry. I think the magnitude of it finally hit me, after everything that happened… I haven't even unpacked yet. I'm sorry for abandoning you – I've always been your agony aunt, and a buffer in your shouting matches with Mum. But I had to leave, Lily, I had to. Anyway, I'm here now. I'm here to start over, and face up to the past. I want to learn to laugh again, and to find someone to love who will love me back. Wish me luck, little sister. Love, Joy x
Release date: May 17, 2019
Publisher: Bookouture
Print pages: 350
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Dear Lily
Drew Davies
Dear Lily,
No, that’s way too formal and composed.
Help! Lily!
Better, but doesn’t quite communicate the profoundness (profundity? profundification?) of this mess I’m in.
OH GOD, LILY, I THINK I’VE RUINED MY LIFE!!
Perfect.
Lil – seriously – what have I done? Wrenching myself away from everything I know, and everyone dear to me. I never even stopped to think about the consequences on YOU either – losing your only sibling, abandoned by your much-wiser and (very slightly) older sister.
‘Oh, eff off!’ I can hear you saying with perfect clarity. ‘What wisdom?’
But there are things, Lil. I can always tell when milk is about to go bad, for one – I don’t even need to smell it, I just shake the carton. If that’s not wisdom, I don’t know what is. And I’ve always been your agony aunt, meddling listening to your problems, especially romantic ones. I was also a great buffer in your infamous shouting matches with Mum – so see, you will miss me.
What’s that? you say. Maybe I should come home immediately?
No, actually that doesn’t sound like you at all. You’ve always loved the idea of leaving everything behind and starting over. You’d relish this. Maybe that’s why I’ve done it – to impress you. Impressed yet? Can I leave now?
‘Sheesh – give it a chance, lady!’ is what you’d actually say. ‘It might be fun.’
Fine. I’m in Denmark; the happiest place on Earth, I’m told. And I’m miserable.
Back home, before I left, I’d been so busy – preparing things at work, packing my stuff, going to all those farewell drinks, saying goodbye to you, and Mum and Dad, avoiding my not-boyfriend Robby – I never had a moment to stop and process the fact that I was leaving London. But then, with all my worldly possessions gone from the flat, it finally hit home. Someone (me apparently, although I’d like to see the tapes) had bought a one-way ticket to a strange country I’ve never even visited before.
WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Okay, breathe.
Yesterday was my last day in the UK office – sending off eleventh-hour emails and doing everything that I’d procrastinated over for the past eight weeks in a crazed, sweaty rush. This included some last-minute social media stalking of my new subordinates (probably shouldn’t call them that – colleagues, they’re my new Danish colleagues. Probably shouldn’t be online stalking them either…) – two guys… and a lady. I know, crazy, huh?, another woman in medical technology (or ‘med tech’ as the cool kids call it)? I wonder if my management style will translate to females (and by management style, I mean vague threats and couched suggestions of more deodorant, because – well, geeky boys smell). The younger of my two male subordinates – Jakob is his name – doesn’t look like the sort of person who smells bad though, in fact, I’m a little in love with him already. Jakob’s blond, with a lovely smile, and a freckle on his lower lip that I thought was a mark on my screen until I spent a good thirty seconds trying to remove it with a licked thumb. Must remember not to do that in person when I meet him.
My London team had already thrown me a boozy farewell party the night before, so it was pretty awkward seeing everyone again, especially considering how many shots of sambuca I’d put away. ‘Still here?’ they all said the next morning, at least twice. ‘Came back for more cake, did you?’ Haha, everyone, hilarious – like I’m not going to help myself to a modest slice of the banana loaf sitting unattended in the breakout room (Full disclosure: I had two massive slices – slabs the size of doorstops – but only as a form of silent protest against the cake-shamers).
After I’d said my goodbyes for the umpteenth time, I raced back home to take meter readings, and get into a long argument with Royal Mail about the forwarding of my post (mostly travel brochure junk mail, but hey, maybe one day I’ll want to take that camel ride in the Sahara) and then it was 7.30 p.m., and all I’d consumed all day was two slices of cake (albeit astronomically giant slices) and about fifteen cigarettes (due to stress), so I was already feeling shaky when the power cut out. And it was there, in my dark, empty, increasingly cold flat, that I began to have the tiniest of misgivings. I knew nothing about Denmark. I hadn’t even Googled it properly, preferring to live (as I’m sure you’ll agree) in a protective bubble of total self-denial.
It was at this point that I started to blame myself. Not me me – I’m an absolute delight – I mean her, the other Joy. The Organised Joy who schedules early-morning yoga classes on the weekend, or spontaneously buys self-help books online, or decides to move to a brand new country when her current one is still (mostly) perfectly adequate – the Joy you’re always telling to chill out. But it’s always me, this Joy, who has to cancel the yoga, or read return ignore those self-help books, and it’s me who is now being displaced – being made a refugee, if you will – by my own good intentions. Okay, maybe conflating my decision to move to a Scandinavian country with the terrible plight of legitimate refugees is over-stepping the mark, but the truth remains, Lil – Organised Joy had really messed stuff up. You should have seen me, walking around my eerily furniture-less flat, checking I’d filled all the holes in the walls properly so I’d get my deposit back, blinking back the tears and trying not to have an existential crisis. I stood in the dark bathroom questioning my decision. I stared into the mirror like a weirdo, lamenting the trim I had on my fringe (too choppy, it doesn’t sit right), while also regretting not taking off more from the length, so my hair didn’t touch my shoulders. Although I do like the colour – ‘Medium Chocolate Brown’ to get rid of the random grey. My eyes were swollen, but at least they didn’t look wrinkly in the gloom. My face has always looked so child-like, with cheeks that people want to pinch, but I’m getting old, Lil. It’s happening.
Since I’m painting you a picture, I should probably reveal I was holding Harville too. That’s right – I’ve kidnapped your beloved childhood teddy bear from Mum and Dad’s, and I’m taking him with me. Sorry, you don’t use him anymore – he’s my emotional support animal now. If you want him back, you’ll just have to come and visit (yes, I am blackmailing you).
Oh, and then Mum texted: ‘Darling, can you be sure your leaving isn’t a way of punishing your father and I? x’
I love how she phrases things, so it’s impossible to respond. I sent back a passive-aggressive kissy face emoji, and then a few minutes later, I caved and sent the appeasing, ‘I’ll visit all the time, I promise.’ You’d have been proud of me, Lil, not rising to the bait.
I’d planned on returning some Tupperware to my neighbour Gladys next door and saying goodbye, but she was out (at eighty-nine, Gladys almost has a better social life than I do), so I left the Tupperware on her doorstep, with a blue vase of mine she’d always liked, watered her plants one last time, and wandered back. Inside, I wrapped a sleeping bag around my shoulders and sat outside on the front step with Harville to smoke what I’d decided would definitely be my last ever cigarette – and then one more cigarette, to really hammer home the point. Midway through my third, Robby texted.
‘Guess you’re really going through with it,’ he wrote. ‘Bon voyage, I suppose…’ Gee, thanks, Robby, that is definitely one of the more depressing messages in the history of human existence. (Yes, I know I’m always a bit mean to Robby. He’s lovely and sweet really, but I feel understandably irritated when I think I wasted six whole years of my life trying to make it work with him.) I finished my fourth very-last-ever cigarette and was mentally composing an indignant reply to his message when I heard sirens in the distance, a wailing end-of-the-world cacophony (spelling?). This is pretty much a daily occurrence in London so I barely notice the noise anymore. But I realised I didn’t even know what an ambulance or a police car or a fire engine would sound like in Denmark, and so I spent fifteen minutes frantically searching ‘Danish ambulance sounds’ and ‘Danish emergency number’ with zero reception on my phone, feeling panicky, until I started to shiver from the cold and shuffled inside to sleep in a messy heap on the floor – but not before Harville suggested one final, last cigarette for good luck (he can be quite a pusher sometimes).
I’d hoped I might feel better in the morning, but when have I ever felt better waking at 4 a.m.? No, I felt wild and totally unprepared when my alarm went off. Somehow, I managed to arrive at the train station, board my train, check my luggage in at the airport, and get through security, but I was in such a manic daze, it was a miracle to find I’d arrived in the right seat, on the right plane, at roughly the right time. As one of the cabin crew passed me the inflight magazine, I tried to smile, but the skin on my face felt like aluminium foil pulled tight by a winch. I sat, swaying slightly, as the crew did their safety demonstration, and I wondered if maybe I should put my hand up and ask to be let off, but then the lights dimmed and the engine roared, and I thought, that’s it then. No turning back now. Bon voyage, I suppose.
After we’d taken off, and the lights came on again, I began to cry. Not a big production – conservative even, considering what I’m capable of – but I was in an aisle seat, and I could sense that the couple next to me wanted to get up and maybe go to the loo or something, but they didn’t dare ask this crazy stricken girl, soundlessly weeping in seat 21C, to move, and I didn’t want to stand up and show everyone my puffy eyes, so we all just sat there, pretending it wasn’t happening. Eventually, I stopped blubbering. The male of the couple chivalrously offered me a tissue, and I decided to pull myself together and take stock:
I am a woman in her mid-thirties (yelp!), who hasn’t been in a serious relationship for a decade (my on-again, off-again relationship with Robby doesn’t count). Everyone my age is either married, has kids, or both – and anyway, they’ve all moved out of London, so I never see them. I make relatively good money as a project manager at a medical software company, and sometimes I even like my job, but I’ve been in the same office for eight years, don’t have any savings and I’m still a million miles away from owning a house. I’ve never taken any real risks in my life and so when something came up at work, a role at the Danish office, I didn’t exactly jump at the chance, but I lunged in its general direction. And the Universe conspired to make it happen, even with my (many) acts of self-sabotage. I haven’t been happy in London for a long time. Some reasons you know, some you don’t (I won’t go into it here…) so I wanted to try something new, and the Danes are famous for living happy lives – they win happiness awards from the United Nations all the time – that must rub off on you, right? If I…
I was really getting into a groove with all this self-talk, when the pilot announced we’d be starting our descent in ten minutes. Arriving? We’d only just taken off! (I might have become engrossed in the inflight magazine for a good forty-five minutes – did you know Britney Spears has twenty-two perfumes, Lil? My favourite being Fantasy The Naughty Remix, a ‘truly unforgettable scent’ – which is not always a good thing, Brit). How could a life-changing flight take only a measly hour and a half? My Danish phrasebook remained unopened.
I must have appeared rattled again, because the nice chap next to me offered up a pre-emptive tissue – but then the hostesses were whisking away the magazines, collecting the rubbish, and making us put down the armrests for some reason, and I kept craning my neck to see if I could catch a glimpse of my new homeland through the window (I couldn’t), and the lights dimmed again and we made a bumpy landing and then everyone was unbuckling their seatbelts and making a mad dash for their bags in the overhead compartments, and inside I was screaming, ‘I’m not ready! Do another lap around the tarmac!’, but we were shunted out of the plane, into the cold spring air, and there it was: Denmark. Well, the Copenhagen airport bit of it, grey and dull and overcast – so very much like London then.
We shuffled through passport control – the attendant was surprisingly smiley to everyone, they usually have such poker faces – and then it was a short six-mile hike to collect our bags at a terminal that smelled like farts (from the nearby toilets) and hotdogs (from the nearby hotdog stand). Yes, there was a hotdog stand near the bag carousel. I’m not sure what I was expecting in terms of my first exposure to Danish cuisine, but hotdogs were not high on the list (for research purposes, I did eat one).
After I’d corralled my suitcases and finished my (chewy) hotdog, I zig-zagged my bags towards the exit. I’ve always hated the moment when everyone watches you arrive through the sliding doors – I get so anxious. All those hopeful, expectant faces, and then the shadow of disappointment when they realise you’re not their beloved Aunt Tilly, or their son Duncan back from Afghanistan. Walking through the exit this time, I notice several people (adults and children) holding little red flags with white crosses on them, which I guessed to be the Danish flag (I’d thought it was blue, but that might be Sweden’s – shows how much I know about the country I’ve decided to move to). The flags were charming, especially so early in the morning (some of the people were even half-heartedly waving them for extra effect), and it made the waiting crowd much less intimidating and actually pretty welcoming. Good work, Danes, I thought, you’ve won this round (I just Googled ‘Danish flags airport’, and it seems they do this out of a mixture of national pride and just because it looks nice). I did my usual trick of avoiding everyone’s eye-line, while also trying to find my driver (I know – super fancy. It was organised by my work before you start lecturing me about being part of the Bourgoisie (sp?) elite) and eventually, I spotted a man holding an iPad (futuristic!) with ‘Taranaki’ written on it, so I trundled over to him, smiled expectantly and said, ‘Hello’.
Without smiling, he said a word that I didn’t understand, but which sounded a lot like ‘Eeyore,’ and so I assumed meant ‘hello’ in Danish – although he didn’t look very Danish.
‘Hello,’ I said again.
He repeated, ‘Eeyore?’ but with more of an upwards inflection, and now, I might not be a cunning linguist, but I do recognise that as a sign the person is trying to communicate a question, so I did what any British person would do in the situation and immediately apologised.
‘I’m sorry?’ I said nervously, and then our man with the iPad repeated, more slowly this time – as if I am deaf or particularly stupid (a valid read considering the evidence) – ‘Eeeeeyooooooi?’ and pointed at me.
‘I don’t understand,’ I replied, and began to look around in a panic, hoping someone else might translate for us, but they were all too busy waving their little flags to notice.
Finally, I said, ‘That’s me,’ and pointed to his iPad.
‘You are Eeyore?’ the man asked, surprising me with his grasp of English.
‘No, I’m Joy,’ I said, and then it dawned on me, he was saying Joy, only put through a heavy accent filter. I am Eeyore! Oh, how we laughed – well, I laughed. He just looked slightly annoyed. Ice broken at least, and communication restored (partially), he helped take my suitcases to his taxi, and I got into the back. The driver’s English wasn’t great – he was Serbian, he told me – but he already knew where I was staying, so that was a relief. As we drove, there was a general smartness and order to the buildings which felt decidedly un-British (well, un-East London-ish, at least) and soon we’d reached what I guessed was the outer suburbs, and the people walking round did seem taller like everyone says they are, and blonder and better dressed. In the run-up to leaving, everyone had teased me about how short I was going to be compared to the Danes, but I wasn’t particularly worried. Being five feet four, I’ve lived my whole life with the world taller – it would be strange if everyone was shorter than me. But I hadn’t considered living in a world of giants. What if they mistook me for a small child? Or if the bathroom sinks were all too high, and I couldn’t wash my hands? Would I be able to buy clothes that fit? And what if all the men had massive willies (and not in a good way) so I could never have sex again? The panic attack lasted about three minutes, during which I chugged an antidepressant (I’m medicating again, did I mention?).
I was staying in an area called Frederiksberg (spelling?), and finally, the taxi pulled up to a residential block next to a large red brick church with a rose window, I think it’s called, which seemed bulkier and more monastic than the ones we have at home. The driver removed my luggage from the boot, and I wanted to tip him, but I only had big bills, so I decided to give him a compliment instead.
‘Thank you – your driving was very smooth,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Your driving,’ I said louder, as if he was now deaf, ‘no bumps!’
I shook his hand meekly, and dragged my suitcases away from an oncoming swarm of cyclists. I think the driver probably understood what I meant. On a molecular level.
The Danish office had sent over three Airbnbs to choose from, and I’d picked the one closest to the language school (where I’m doing an intensive five-day Danish course next week) without really looking at the details, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. A man buzzed me in and told me to come up to the fourth floor. There was no elevator, so I lugged my cases up four flights of stairs, where I was met by Viggo – my first bona fide Danish person! He wasn’t a whole lot taller than me, which was reassuring, and he had blond hair and a stubbly beard, like a lesser Bee Gee brother. He also seemed a bit standoffish, but that might have been in comparison to all the polite fakery we normally do in England, all the gushing and frozen grins, the bobbing and blushing, and ‘Oh gosh, really?’ and the rest. Viggo made statements impassively, and moved on to the next one without asking how my journey was, or mentioning the weather, or noting that I was still panting heavily (what, me out of shape?). I was surprised to learn I was staying in the large canary-coloured room we were currently standing in, which included a living space – with its own sofa, armchair and coffee table, the desk and computer – as well as a bedroom area, with a double bed. ‘But where will you be?’ I asked nervously, not wanting to share a communal space, especially not with a strange man, however nice he seemed. ‘With my parents,’ Viggo said, maybe sensing my nervousness, ‘an hour’s drive away.’ Phew, I thought.
The next surprise was Minnie, the cat. Minnie was small and white, with a black patch on her back, and admittedly, was very cute, but you know how I feel about pets. ‘She won’t be a problem?’ Viggo asked, and I should have lied and said I was allergic or something, but I got caught up in my polite don’t-make-a-fuss Englishness, and simply shook my head instead. Next, Viggo gave me a tour of the rest of the apartment: a very detailed account of the kitchen (‘This jar is for almonds. This for walnuts’), the bathroom, and a peek into his flatmate’s room (a Portuguese PhD student, ‘who is out a lot – you will never see her’).
Viggo put a few things in a bag, and I felt bad about kicking him out of his own home, but he seemed nonplussed. After he’d gone, I sat down on the bed, and Minnie jumped onto my lap. I patted her noncommittally for a moment or two, and then I noticed the definite smell of man musk emanating from the bed, so I opened a window, and looked out onto the street for a while – the red brick church opposite, a little supermarket on the corner, blocks of five-storey flats (some with turret roofs) – watching all the people, cars and the many bikes come and go. Children on bikes too. One boy with a blue helmet, comically big for him, wobbling behind his mother. She didn’t even turn around, she just cycled more slowly until he caught up. When they’d gone from view, I tried to see all the English words I could find, ‘Elite’ on the supermarket, ‘filter’ on a van, but everything else was in Danish. It was so surreal to be physically in Copenhagen, and I felt sad again, and tired and hungry (I should have had two hotdogs) and lonely, so much so that I actually picked up the cat and hugged her to my chest and said, ‘Oh, Minnie, what have I done?’ Minnie scrambled her legs wildly, which felt like a fair response. After I’d let her down again and brushed off all the white cat hair from my jumper, I thought about making a cup of tea, but I didn’t have any milk or teabags, and there were only alien cups in the kitchen covered in other people’s germs. Instead, I had a cigarette out of the window (I might have bought a cheeky carton of them at duty free – whoops!) and checked my phone – Mum wishing me a safe flight, someone from the UK office with a pain-in-the-ass request (even though I’m technically on holiday until I start at the Danish office in a week), and of course, one from Robby, simply asking, ‘You there yet?’ (I didn’t reply). After I stubbed out the cigarette, I released Harville from his suitcase prison, and then borrowed several sheets of paper from the printer by Viggo’s computer, found a pen in my bag, and sat down at the desk to write you this letter, and reading it over now, it does seem miserable and whiny, and I really do know what you’d say if you were here. Once you’d finished rolling your eyes, you’d give me a big hug (probably scraping my cheek with your nose stud) and say, ‘Listen, Joy, if you come back right now, you’ll never hear the end of it from Mum. This is . . .
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