Month: February 2021

Friday February 19

Maja:

I wake up early to finish up the last touches of the preparations. Bag is packed, I take a shower, then decide that I will bring that raincoat afterall that me and Mark have been discussing since yesterday if I’ll need or not. It’s always nice to have a raincoat so in the bag it goes. I can only take one suitcase so it has been really hard to choose what to pack. With Corona, it’s not like I’m not really going to be able to browse in any stores once I’m there, so it’s been important for me to choose wisely what to take. Mark’s been helping by buying me the bulky necessities, so I’m going to be set when I get there. I have what I need, and I’m ready to leave. With my heart as heavy as lead I say goodbye to my husband and Tommy, my dog. It’s really hard to leave. But I can’t stay. We wave and I take a last look at them and then turn around and walk away. With tears running down my cheeks. I look at the scenery around me, and it hurts so much seeing the place I had to fight so hard to get to slipping away from my reach. It’s cold and sunny outside. The tired rays of light glisten on the snow that lies undisturbed foot-deep on the side of the footpath. I walk the same path to the underground station that I’ve walked so many times before, and everything is so familiar to me. I pass the hairdresser where I got my ear pierced when I was a little kid. The swimming pool me and my family would go to when I was still in kindergarten. I have so many memories of this place, and it is with a heavy heart and tear stained cheeks that I message Mark that I’ve arrived at the station.

The trip to the airport goes without much trouble. My suitcase isn’t that heavy, and I’m only bringing one bag and a small backpack, so it isn’t hard to carry. I arrive at the airport way before necessary to have plenty of time checking in and it goes smoothly. When I reach the check-in counter the lady sitting there seems very surprised to hear that I am going to London. She checks my document to make sure that I’ve completed all of the required formalities such as the passenger locator form, ordered the covid tests for after arrival and of course that I have a certificate telling me that I have tested negative for covid. Everything is in order and I get to continue along. Once I’ve passed security and found the gate I finally start to relax a little bit. I call Mark up to see how things are going his end. Everything seems fine. He is also on his way to the airport to meet me. We talk for a while, and I feel kind of awkward not really wanting to call anyone else, so we just stay on the line. Just hanging on. Hanging out. Not saying much or anything at all, feeling relieved to know that we’re going to meet soon. 

We hang up after a while and I have to wait a bit on my own. There’s a lady walking around close to the gate with a survey and I decide to take part. It’s about why are you traveling to London. In normal times this would have been a completely unnecessary survey to do, but with recent events it is very much a valid question. Who in their right mind would want to go from a country where everything is nice and open like it is in Sweden, to a country which is in lockdown and pretty much still totally closed? To one of the hardest hit countries of this pandemic? Well, someone like me. I answer something along the lines of: to meet family/friends. That’s a fitting survey answer for a question like that. I don’t think too much of it until she expresses surprise and delight that she’s found someone who is going to London as an actual destination rather than using it as a transit point like, apparently, just about everyone else who’s going there.

It’s finally boarding time and I reach my seat. There’s not really anyone sitting closeby, which is greatly fitting for a day like today. But the plane isn’t completely empty either. I would say, maybe about 20 per cent of the seats are taken, but I’m not really looking that carefully. There is about a flight every third day, so that’s probably why they’re able to fill it up as much as they had. I sit down next to the window, wearing my compulsory face mask. The plane soon takes off and I have this immense feeling of relief. I’m on my way. I lean back and let myself drift away, listening to the album “In between dreams” by Jack Johnson. At my request of something to listen to, Mark recommended it just before I left. It’s a wonderful record, and I let it go on repeat as I allow myself to be transported to that wonderful state in between dreams. Dreams of a brighter future. Dreams of the unknown. And just sleep.

Time flies, and after I don’t know how long, we start to approach London. I sluggishly look out of the window, seeing the city that I’m going to live in. The city called London. I feel excitement starting to bubble up in my chest as, more and more, I see the details of the endless rows of brown buildings beneath the clouds. They look like gingerbread houses. London, the city of endless gingerbread houses in their neat little rows. We get closer and closer to the ground and I feel the impact as the wheels of the plane touch the ground. I’m here now!

I can’t help myself, and I text Mark, I’m here now! The first thing I do is tell him about the gingerbread houses. 

Mark:

It’s with some relief that I chat with Maja this morning. All seems to be going smoothly and she’s out of the door by 9am my time. She’s on her way now. However, by the time I’m on my way and leaving for the airport, she still doesn’t have a room in London. I was really hoping Elvin would have left by then so that I would be able to get in there and have at least something of a once over but timings just haven’t worked out so I’ll have to leave with him still occupying the place. Which means Maja will see it for the first time in whatever state he’s left it. I just have to trust he’ll do at least something of a decent job before he leaves. He’s been a good housemate and friendly enough, but he’s been pretty much been a keep himself to himself kind of guy so there are no tearful goodbyes. Or goodbyes of any kind as he’s out at work early and will be leaving while I’m out. So that’s that for Elvin. Good luck on your travels mate. On a scale of depth of feeling, it’s the equivalent of one of your goldfish dying. Probably your least favourite one.

The flight’s due in at 6pm but it can be a bit of a trek to Heathrow. And I have a few things to check out once I get there. I’ve also got one or two errands left to run to cross and dot the final i’s and t’s before Maja’s arrival, including a trip to Ktown to pick up some essentials for her that she’s asked if I could sort out. Coffee, orange juice, fresh fruit and the like. Nothing major because she’s barely been eating in Sweden over the past few weeks I’ve been hearing. All that done and I’m on my way to the airport by around 2pm quite confident of getting there in plenty of time to find the arrivals gate, and then to make sure I know the route from there to the coach station. But oh dear. I get down into Ktown tube and it takes a while for me to discover that the train I want has got issues today and there’s a substantial waiting time for it, rather than the usual zero to four minutes you can normally expect. Not cool. That almost never happens, but it’s happened on this particular day. Balls. Very reluctantly I leave the tube station to go back up to the street to catch a bus to Kings Cross, where I will catch the train to Heathrow. Disaster up here too as a whole bunch of buses aren’t running for some reason and I have another wait of 15 to 20 minutes when again, a maximum of four is to be expected. So, having given myself an extra hour for the journey, I’ve already lost most of the grace of that time. Then, when the bus does finally get here and we set off, I discover that Ktown is undergoing a whole bunch of roadworks and these cause even more delays. This really isn’t going very well at all. If I’d left in what I thought would have been optimal time and had this lot happen I’d probably be looking at arriving late by now, and Maja walking out into London with no-one to meet her. That just would not be an option. As it is, by the time I finally get on the Kings Cross to Heathrow train the timing is looking at least half respectable and I arrive at the airport a little before 5pm. 

Then I discover I’m already very close to the arrivals gate, and then that the coach station is also very nearby to that. Cool. I think I deserve those two mini breaks. All I have to do now is buy a couple of coach tickets and I’ll be at the gate ready and waiting by 5:30. Perfect. No. Problem. There was nothing about this on any website I saw but the Heathrow coach isn’t running due to Covid. And no other buses from here are remotely suitable. Balls again. OK. Let’s just get to the gate to be ready in situ and make a new plan from there. I park myself in sight of where the people come out and have a look at the tube plan I keep in my bag. Yep. This will do nicely. We can get a tube to Piccadilly Circus where Maja will be able to get her first look at central London. Then it’s a really cool but not too long walk from there to the bus stop by Oxford Circus station to catch the 88 that will go all the way to our house, or we can get off it a little earlier if Maja still wants to have that walk she was talking about before having to start that 10 day quarantine thing.

Now I’ve done this and I really am ready, I have a chance to fully take in my surroundings and to see how people are behaving. First, the good news is that there is no sign of any TV cameras. And people are allowed to come and meet friends and relatives; a sign says that only one person is allowed to greet arrivals. That’s fine. I counted myself on the way here and confirmed that I am indeed one person. The place is weirdly empty though. You’d normally expect to see whole families all milling around arrivals. But no. Just a few individuals dotted around, possibly also reflecting the fact that there will not be many people arriving at arrivals. This should be quite quick. I wonder how Maja’s flight is getting on. We’re very much edging towards 6pm now. It should be just about landing. And yep. There it is on the screen. Landed and on it’s way in. My phone pings. ‘Just landed. Waiting to get out. Woooooooooooooooooooooo!!’ ‘Welcome to London,’ I shoot back. This really is it now and she asks what our strategy for meeting is. She’s very pleased that I’m able to report we can just behave normally. With masks on, of course. She should be coming through soon, but no-one emerges from the gates at all and time starts to drag on. And on. And on. Then I start to hear people coming through the gates furiously complaining of waits of up to three hours. Oh dear. That’s not good. Neither is the fact that they seem to be coming out in very intermittent groups of three. And Maja’s talking of hundreds of people out there waiting to come through. I think I should settle in here. But after an hour she messages to say she’s near the end of the queue. Great. Then a message a few minutes later. ‘After this queue, do you know what they got?’ ‘Don’t know.’ ‘A new queue.’ Oh that’s a good one.

I’m clearly not the only one waiting far beyond what I expected but I think I can see the most uncomfortable person in the room. Someone thought it would be a really good idea to turn up at arrivals wearing a dinosaur costume. Yep. Full on tyrannosaurus rex thing. I’m sure it was such a laugh to arrive and anticipate the delighted shock of their friend. I wonder how that’s all working out now. I can see the costume over there this whole time. The poor guy, or girl, in there, has been waiting at least an hour and a half over the odds. And I’m sure that when whoever it is they’re meeting comes out, their mood will be quite different to what it was when the plane landed. Unfortunately I don’t see how that little drama plays out because I get a message. Only eight people in front of her now. Then two. Then.

I see her walking through arrivals all on her own, pink jacket on just like she said she would have, as though we wouldn’t have recognised each other. But then, maybe we wouldn’t have with the whole mask thing going on. I’m looking straight at her but she hasn’t seen me as her eyes dart side to side looking for at least a semi familiar face in this country she’s never seen before. I take a step forward and our eyes lock. Oh yes. Here we are now and we both walk to close the distance between us. All I want to do is hug her hard and let her know she’s OK now. And that’s exactly what happens as we say hello and pull each other tight as we finally find ourselves on the same little patch of ground. Then I tell her the bus is out but we have a new route. First, the lift, and arriving there we’re on our own. So our masks come off and we see each other fully and up close for the first time. Cool. Another hug, without talking, then the doors open again and a few people walk in so the masks go back on. After the lift I take the lead as we head into the tube and it’s really bizarre that there are hardly any people here. She asks where we’re going and I say it’s a surprise but that she’ll like it. She accepts that and on we go. When the train arrives and we find a carriage, we’re the only people in it. So once seated, we take the opportunity to remove the masks again but still neither of us speaks. Instead, she removes her right hand from her pocket and shows it to me, holding all the fingers up to give me a clear look. Oh wow. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? I don’t actually ask the question but it’s clear in my eyes. She totally receives the unspoken, incredulous words and nods slowly. With that she takes my hand in hers and leans against me like the weary traveler she is. As she does so I get a much closer look at her ring finger with that white band of skin circling it where a wedding ring used to be. I put an arm around her and we both snuggle in, hands still holding. But really, it feels very innocent. She’s tired and I’m just comforting a friend who’s had a really tough few weeks and more, and a bit of a journey today followed by an uncomfortably long wait in arrivals, all while traveling in the time of Covid. It just so happens that we only met for the first time a few minutes ago. It’s often too loud on the tube to talk comfortably so she waits patiently and trustfully until I announce that it’s time to get off. We’re in Piccadilly Circus and, with me carrying her suitcase, we walk up the steps and into the famous plaza with its overlooking motion and colour-filled advertising screens. Here, I get her to stand in front of them as I step back with my phone. Snap. Maja’s first photograph in London and we are right in the heart of it. She has truly arrived. Phone back in pocket and I lead the way again, heading off to Regent Street. In my left hand I have the handle of Maja’s wheeled suitcase. And now, in my right hand, I have Maja’s hand. We look at each other and smile. She isn’t letting go. And just for the record, neither am I.

We walk down Regent Street then I direct us down a side street to the right, then left to continue walking in the same direction. We’re now on Kingly Street and I ask if she has any idea where she is. She doesn’t. We continue a little way, and then she lets out a little oh wow, of recognition as we arrive in front of Ain’t Nothin But…The Blues. London’s world famous blues bar and a major venue in the jam world of Mark’s Diaries. We stop here for a selfie, chat for a little while, and then we’re back off on our way, talking about everything, nothing, and just generally laughing a lot. And in this lockdown London world, there are times when it feels like we have the city to ourselves, at the very least we are totally alone in these side streets. Yes. Right now, London is ours so much that it feels as though we’re wearing it. We walk past the famous Carnaby Street and its imposing sign and back onto Regent Street where we cross the road at Oxford Circus and go on over to the bus stop for the 88. We wait there, still holding hands and talking for five minutes or so and then Maja asks if it’s possible to walk back to my house from here. It is. ‘Can we do that?’ she asks. Yep. We will. And so we walk. Hand in hand all the way. She’s fast, and I’m more than happy to keep this pace. As a result we heat up quite quickly and jumpers come off somewhere halfway between here and Camden town. All the way she’s marvelling at how old so much of the architecture seems to be and I delight in pointing out buildings that are hundreds of years old, yet sit perfectly comfortably wedged in between their modern cousins. Through Camden and Maja doesn’t know it yet, but we’re on the final strait as the road merges seamlessly with that of Kentish Town’s high street. We’re still holding hands and are just past the main shops of KTown when a woman remarks on our T-shirted appearances. ‘Are you guys not cold at all?’ she asks as she approaches, walking in the opposite direction. ‘Not at all,’ I answer honestly. ‘You should try it. It feels lovely.’ ‘I think I’ll leave it to younger people like yourselves,’ she says. ‘I’m freezing.’ ‘Walk a bit faster, it works for us,’ I call good naturedly to her as she starts to disappear into the night. She laughs and politely declines again. Next to me, Maja is almost in shock. ‘You talk to strangers over here?’ ‘All the time,’ I say laughing at the clear awe in her face. ‘You should try it.’ ‘No thanks.’ Give it time.

We’ve arrived and we take a left turn into the Carrol Close estate. For the past 10 minutes or so she’s been asking if some of the houses we’ve been seeing look like ours and I’ve been saying no, and she’s also been asking if our house looks like the gingerbread houses she told me earlier that she saw from the air on her London approach. Again, no. Then we’re in the estate and she sees the row of houses we’re heading towards. ‘Oh, they’re totally like the gingerbread houses I saw from the air,’ she says emphatically. OK. I guess we do live in a gingerbread house then.

I open the front gate and go to open the door to the house but Maja stops me. ‘Not yet,’ she says. ‘Can’t we wait outside for a while? I’m not ready to go in and meet a load of new people yet.’ Fair enough. I suggest leaving the suitcase right inside the door and going for a walk but she doesn’t want to walk anymore either. So we sit down on the small front garden step. There, still holding hands, we talk quietly about nothing in particular.

I’m sure you’re wondering if I’m feeling the slight stirring of something here and the answer is very much yes. And for the Jenn situation, it’s about time I say here that we’re just friends, just very close friends who happen to have lived together for quite a long time. Going on 12 years in fact. I might as well get this bit out now as well. We were in a relationship very early on, and that lasted a year give or take. The joke back then among our Madrid friends was that we split up and then started dating, which is actually a pretty fair take on what happened. And we carried on living comfortably together. It probably helped that the Hamburg jaunt with Drunken Monkees straddled the two realities of couple Mark and Jenn and friend Mark and Jenn. Hamburg was my pop punk band’s German adventure when we tried to emulate some foursome from Liverpool and set ourselves up there as a band that really could have a chance of doing something. It didn’t work out and I returned to live in Madrid with a girl I’d broken up with on the phone while in Germany. It was pretty much mutual to be fair and we made it quite clear in the subsequent years, through a few more moves together as well, that we were both free to pursue other avenues if something came along. She even once said the words, ‘Don’t think we’re going to grow old together.’ However, nothing really did come along for either of us, so we settled into a really quite comfortable pattern around each other which included living in the same room in this house in Kentish Town where we’ve been for the better part of five or six years now. I don’t really know about her, I don’t think she has, but I haven’t really been properly looking for anything to replace this. Not seriously, except for the odd mild dalliance here and there which I’ve always told her about. Over the years I’ve quite got to like our cosy friendly, companionable-but-apart comfortzone. Why look for anything else? This works. 

Well now Maja’s sitting next to me and our chat has subsided to a very comfortable silence with her looking the other way to me and out towards the far end of the close. I start to let in whatever it is I’ve been feeling and holding back over the past few days as I realise this could actually be something and I suddenly realise I’m in one of those moments in life you just can’t let pass you by. You think you’ll get another chance some other time but you really don’t and you have to take this one. This one that I’ve arrived at completely by accident. Alright, I deliberately said the words, ‘You could come here,’ but they were just words to help out. Nothing more. But then the seriousness began and I became a very virtual shoulder to lean on. Now I’m a very literal shoulder to lean on. If she chooses to, which she isn’t right now. Yes. I’ve opened the gates to my thoughts and feelings. I had them locked so tight, I thought, but they’ve suddenly turned into floodgates and become overwhelmed. With that, I know I really do have to do something right now or regret it and forever wish I had. But she’s suddenly so physically far away. She starts to say something, I think. But I cut her off. With my left arm already over her shoulder, I gently but firmly and quite quickly direct her head so that she now faces me. I can’t allow for heistation now. I just can’t. To hesitate would be to stop. To stop would be…I don’t want to think what it would be. I just follow on through with the movement, but then suddenly realise that she’s completely going with it. We meet in the middle and kiss. It goes on for quite a long time. With that, everything comes together. We part and I realise all my mental energy just went into making that moment happen and I have no idea what to say now it has actually happened. But there is no silence. She immediately jumps into it with a big smile and a wide eyed exclamation. ‘I can kiss Mark.’ ‘Yes you can,’ I say, with what must be a pretty stupid looking smile as I try to act cool. So she does. And I do. Again and again. Then abruptly she stands up. Did I say stands up? She doesn’t. From a sitting start, she breaks into an immediate run, still holding my hand. ‘What the h…’ I say to the open air of the street. But I have no choice. All I can do is launch myself upwards, pulled by her own force, and run with her. Together, still holding hands, we sprint to the end of the close. Then we turn and sprint back to the house. With that completed she turns to me and takes both my hands in hers. Ever so slightly out of breath she says,  ‘OK. I’m ready. We can go in now.’ 

We walk into the house to just a little bit of a social anticlimax. Given Maja’s hugely extended wait to get through security at arrivals, and the fact that we walked here from central London, we’re arriving a lot later than I expected. Neither Sam or Cris are still up, and Jenn is only around to say hi, to give Maja the bedding things and other sundries we bought, and then she pretty much disappears. That leaves me and Maja to have a look at what she has to deal with in the room that is now hers. Despite all I did to prepare her, she’s still stunned at how small the room is. Again, I did say but it really is super tiny; I will later learn that her walk-in closet at the apartment she left this morning is the same size. Now I take in the state of the place. By London house sharing standards it’s actually been left in an acceptable enough state by Elvin, but it’s not quite up to Maja standards. So although she’s had a long and emotional day, she insists we get busy with a full deep clean of the room before we can go to bed. OK. Let’s get started.

Saturday February 20

Mark:

We barely move from the room today. Maja’s at the very beginning of a journey which is all about recovery. I know that she’s felt tense and almost emotionally hunted for a long time. She’s now out of that situation but the effects and feelings run deep and do not disappear just like that. But she says that last night was the best night’s sleep she’s had since she can remember. Actually the first time since she can remember that she slept all the way through the night. A notable event in itself. She was just restful and relaxed, for the first time since she can remember. With that she has a wake up call of just how much she needed to get out of her situation in Sweden. So yes. Right now is about rest with absolutely no obligations to do anything. For a full ten days. In fact, she’s essentially legally obliged to do practically nothing for the next ten days anyway, or at least not to go anywhere. It’s also about processing. Lots and lots of processing. I spend the whole day listening as Maja talks about what she’s been through over the past year or so. As she talks, it’s clear that she’s doing so to fathom things out for herself as much as engaging me in her thoughts. There are so many branches and avenues down which we can drive and I gently nudge her into a few of them, leading us to explore, in detail, quite a few smaller parts of the big picture. Through all this I basically just try to put pieces together and make sense of it all. It helps that we’ve spoken so much on the phone over the past week and I’ve at least got a handle on some of it, especially the more up to date stuff which I’ve lived or heard about more or less in real time.

We also touch on a few tiny details of our phone calls in the past week, including some of the little hints we dropped to each other which led to bigger hints, which have all led to where we are now.

In between, Maja gets to meet Cris, the leader and vocalist in Wild Child, the Italian heavy metal band I play and travel with, and Sam. The guys are massively friendly and welcoming to her, and when they talk I do my best to stay firmly on the sidelines and let their own conversations develop. Basically, I want these interactions to be organic, with no input from me, and they are indeed organic as Maja charms them with her enthusiasm of being in a whole new environment with new people to hang out with.

These little interludes aside, the two of us talk so much that we totally forget about eating until it hits something like 8pm and we realise we’ve made no plans. The last thing Maja ate was breakfast yesterday morning. I’m not that much different, although I did manage to grab a small thing at the airport once I realised the security holdup was happening. She asks if it’s possible to get takeout sushi at this time in London. Yes it is. But I have to leave now to get to Camden before the place closes. One mad dash later and we have something resembling dinner and the first thing Maja has eaten in almost 36 hours.

Maja:

I wake up alone in the small bed, looking around myself in dislocated confusion. Where am I? It’s hard to remember just what happened last night. I turn around and look at the room, it’s tiny. The walls are white and have specks of dirt on them, the ceiling is white and somewhat patterned, like someone’s been painting it with a drippy paint that wouldn’t quite stick on. There’s a closet that’s small, but proved to fit all my clothes without any problems. By my feet I find a little shelf, over the bed next to the window. Under the bed there’s three drawers. I rest my eyes a little more, squeezing my face down in the pillows, looking up again. Yeah. The room is the same. It’s not my room in Stockholm. This is a minimal room, that would barely be enough for a child’s room. But. It’s mine. The bed feels wonderful, it’s soft. And from it I can see out of the window. Outside there’s a beautiful tree, and it’s in full bloom right now. I feel exhausted, but also rested in a strange way. I’ve slept through the night for the first time in a long time, which is a noticeable event in itself. The room is small, but I don’t care; I’m so happy that I’m here.

I search for my toiletries, and try out the shower. It’s a nice shower, shared with all the other tenants, of course, but it even has a bathtub and I’m pleased to see that it is kept clean. Showered and dressed I go down to the kitchen, where I meet Mark.

Goodmorning, we say as we sheepishly look at each other, and soon afterwards we go back to my room to get to know each other a little bit better. 

In the evening, I ask Mark for sushi, and when he gets back with it I’m very careful eating only a little bit of it.

Sunday February 21

Maja:

I’m in London. It’s a surreal fact to me and every time I try to reflect on it, it hits me forcefully by surprise. I am quite excited about being here. I’m not really sure what life has in store for me here, but that is of less concern. Right now, I’d just like to rest and talk. I spend most of the day with Mark, staring at the ceiling, telling him about who I am and listening to his stories as well. All while looking out the window at the beautiful tree. We joke a lot, and one of our favorite subjects here is that since I can’t go out at all due to the enforced isolation, I could be anywhere. I could be in Brazil for all I know. And we continue to joke about how cold it is in Brazil this time of year. 

We have a garden I can use even though I am in isolation, which is lovely. So we go out there, just for a little while. But apart from that, we’re just in bed. Resting. Talking. 

Mark: 

Today, as we again hang out in the bedroom all day, mostly just staring at the ceiling, I hear story after story of Maja being held back professionally in her career and in music. Stories of people not wanting her to succeed or move away. Stories of her being bullied or ostracised at school. It all builds up a clear picture for me of people feeling they have to hold her down because they’re scared of her. Maja really cannot get her head around this concept. ‘Scared? Of me? Are you serious? How? Why?’ My explanation: scared of what they know she could really become if she was allowed free reign. Scared of her huge innate talent and intelligence. Scared of her drive to use both to their full potential. Scared that she could raise to levels they never could, thereby amplifying their smallness. So they hold her down, back, and discourage and psychologically beat her at every turn and opportunity. For many people, seeing anyone around them succeed only makes them feel more like failures. So rather than do something about this, they try to block any path to success for those around them. Or mock or denigrate their success or efforts with any verbal weapon they have. Basically, they’re terrified of anyone showing them what their lives could have been if they’d only tried and maybe believed a bit more. Maybe they never even had the opportunities to be fair, but that doesn’t mean they should try to remove those opportunities from others, but they do. In Maja I see an absolutely classic case of all of this. I’ve used the following example so many times when considering similar situations and it comes from a Counting Crows lyric. ‘It’s a lifetime commitment recovering the satellites/All anyone really wants to know is when you gonna come down.’ Yep. All I see is that people are terrified of Maja. I think that once she’s recovered from wherever she is emotionally and physically right now, and is able to direct her energies to where she wants to direct them, world, just get out of the damn way. This machine will be unstoppable. The people were quite possibly right to be frightened. They were every million ways wrong to try to stop it. I’m starting to see now that my job is to ensure Maja’s total wellbeing and to do everything I can to give her a safe space in which to relax and recover. To feel absolutely no pressure. And above all, not to tell her she can’t do something she wants to do, which is mostly musical endeavours after mentally breaking down and largely losing her professional identity in a field in which she continues to hover somewhere near the very top. This has been a really big part of how she’s got to this place in the first place – having to fight a constant battle to be who she wants to be. So hard that she’s lost the very sight of who she is. In just this second full day together I’m getting a growing sense that a big priority of mine is to make sure she discovers that again.

In between all this talking there is a little flurry of activity sometime mid afternoon as we remember, just in time for that day’s post, that Maja has to do the first of the two Covid tests as part of the legal requirement of her quarantine. It’s a good job there are two of us as it takes both of us to figure out how to do this thing, mostly how to put together the flat-pack cardboard box she’s been sent to post it all back in. In between this and intense conversations, we eat nothing at all until evening, totally forgetting to do so as the idea of food just slips off both of our to do lists. Again.

When evening time does come and we realise we should probably eat something, Maja decides it’s time she gets into the spirit of being in England a bit and wants to try something typically English. Hmm. What could that be? And given that it’s quite late by the time I’m going out shopping, options are limited. What is typically English food anyway? I’m really not sure. I browse the shelves of the supermarket and there they are. Supermarket bought so not fully authentic, but nevertheless, English. I bring back small individual pork pies, scotch eggs and a quiche. In case you don’t know, here’s a little introduction to all three. Pork pies are characterized, at least as far as I see it, by the type of pastry used to make them. So you have kind of minced pork meat in a dense crunchy pastry very rich in pork fat. Scotch eggs are a full egg wrapped in sausagemeat which is then covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried. So yes, these two things really do have quite high calorie counts. Then there’s quiche, described by Maja when I get back, as an egg pie, but sorry, no. But it is again a pastry based thing containing cooked egg and usually some kind of meat and cheese. And onions. So again, quite high on the calorie scale. I introduce all these to Maja along with that great cornerstone of all things British, brown sauce, a kind of rich, spicy vinegary sauce without which bacon, eggs and most types of British sausage are somehow incomplete. That might just be me, but you get the picture.

Maja:

By evening, I ask Mark to go buy me some English food, I think it is time for me to try something English. I’ve been here for two days now, and haven’t really tried anything yet, so it’s time. Off he goes, I fall asleep and when I wake up he is back. He’s bought a couple of things and is in the kitchen preparing them. When he’s done, he calls me down and we eat. For the first time today.  And we didn’t eat anything at all yesterday. We just had a little bit of sushi yesterday. What I didn’t expect is that English food is quite heavy. And I’ve been really bad at eating recently. So I sit in the kitchen and Mark serves me this decent sized meal, so the polite thing is to eat it, which is what I do. It’s good, the pork pie, scotch egg and quiche are all quite nice. Although not really any extreme flavours or anything which is great, but just quite fatty. I eat maybe half of the meal, and then I sit back, waiting for Mark to finish. Doing so, I can feel how my stomach starts to act up. It starts to cramp. Slowly at first, but soon more and more violently. I’m getting cold sweats and am really wishing Mark could finish up his portion so I can excuse myself. As soon as he does, I tell him that I want to go rest, and I hurry up upstairs and lie down. It’s painful. Really painful. I can’t remember what happened any further than this, everything that remains is the memory of pain. My consciousness must have faded away.

Mark:

I get back and she’s very interested to see what I’ve brought, and keen to try everything so we get to it. So far so fun, and I’m really quite tickled that she seems to really like it all, especially the brown sauce which many foreigners really don’t understand or remotely like. Then, as soon as we’ve finished eating, Maja says she needs to sleep. This, I will discover, will become a pattern as her body recovers from barely eating for the past however long it’s been. But right now, I am in no way prepared for what is about to happen. Almost as soon as we’re in the bedroom the convulsions start. I ask her what’s wrong but she can barely speak, at least not enough to tell me anything useful. Her whole stomach seems to be contracting and as it does, her head flies back, her eyeballs also shooting up and back as it does so. In between is the most horrible, at times high pitched hyperventilating. I try to get her to concentrate on breathing normally, at least, but I get little reaction to that. 

Otherwise, there’s absolutely nothing I can do but watch, horrified, not even sure yet what could possibly have caused this. As I watch helpless, my hand is on my phone and I wonder at what point I’m going to just call it and hit 999. This goes on for about five minutes but it feels like 55. Then slowly everything starts to slow down, back to normal-ish. Her breathing slows and she looks at me like, ‘What the hell happened?’ Like she’s just arrived in the room to the aftermath of some dramatic scene she played no part in. With that she closes her eyes and falls into a sleep I’ll best describe as restless. But asleep she is. I am not. I stay awake for an hour or so until she wakes again, all the time watching and making sure functions are all normal. Or at least normal enough that I don’t have to return to my phone and thoughts of 999. Those thoughts are with me almost every second of that hour.

Monday February 22

Last night we didn’t speak much about what happened, but today we get into it, especially now I’ve seen first hand how bad things have physically gotten for Maja. I’d been told of course, but I guess I have to admit that until last night when I saw it for myself, I really didn’t understand how bad it all really was. I still don’t fully, until she reluctantly admits why what happened last night happened. The way I understand it is that she was caught in a double fix of not wanting to hurt my feelings and of genuinely wanting to try everything. For the past few weeks, along with insomnia, she’s barely been able to eat anything above survival rate, often going days or maybe even weeks of eating below the recommended calorie intake, and almost forcing herself at that. I also feel guilty at having introduced such fat-rich foods to her so soon, but I really had no concept at all of how much those kinds of foods could have affected her. That they could have caused such dramatic events was inconceivable to me. And I know what inconceivable means.

The one time we eat today, again quite late on, all we have is a super bland veggie soup – vegetables and water. Not even any salt. And some simply and very lightly fried white fish, after which Maja has another very tired reaction. It is this that triggers her to finally admit to the problems she has with eating, and I realise that I have to tone it down even more when cooking for her. No seasoning of any kind, and absolutely no oil. I really do have to treat her as though she’s properly sick with a body incapable of digesting anything beyond the simple. In that, this is like reintroducing someone to food who has been starved of it for so long for whatever reason. Within that, I’ve decided to eat only what Maja eats. It isn’t a wonderful diet but it really helps with the solidarity of the situation.

Talking about all this, today we focus on what stress has done to Maja’s body and general habits and the picture painted really isn’t pretty. We also decide that what she has isn’t an eating disorder. It’s more like the inability to be able to eat, which is quite different. And as she’s becoming more relaxed here, she is actually starting to want to eat and is even enjoying it a little, as much as one can enjoy bland boiled veggies and white fish. Although I have to say, I did do it quite well.

Maja:

I need to say, I love my family. I love my husband. With my whole heart. A lot of things have happened that have led me to where I am today. But this is one thing I am absolutely adamant on making clear. I can’t be angry at you, or blame you. I would never wish anything bad of any of you. I miss you. I love you so much it hurts my whole being not being with you. Every day. Always. I love you. 

I’m used to being seen as this strong woman that can do anything and never has any real issues, which makes talking about the issues I have really hard. I’m bad at talking about it. I am even bad at admitting any issues to myself. I’m fine. Nothing’s on my mind. Everything is wonderful. I am not vulnerable. I am strong. I am smart. I can handle myself. I can do anything.

Yeah, you get it, I’m that kind of person. 

This can sometimes lead to loneliness and isolation, even in normal times. Add to that, Covid, which has meant it even became frowned upon to meet friends and family. Meetings become sparse and, since I’m usually the one instigating meetings, they become practically non-existent. But I am not good alone, I need people around me to function. I get it if you don’t understand I can be both at once, but I can. I feel alone even when I’m with people but I am very sociable and need to have people around me. 

I’ve often felt alone and I have had a hard time to feel properly understood. So often I only tell maybe one person how I feel, or I don’t tell anyone. It’s hard enough to admit to myself if I have any issues, and if I tell someone and they don’t understand me or take it lightly, I find it so incredibly hurtful that I might not want to speak about it again. 

I always try to be openhearted and explain to people close to me what is going on, I would never purposefully hide my intentions. I just don’t have it in me to deceive anyone. Mark describes me as purehearted to such a level that I can’t even understand how people can have bad intentions. How people can want to hurt people. I can’t help but agree, I don’t understand how people would like to do that. I know some people do. I just would never want to hurt anyone. Ever.

I’m very selective about who I trust enough to talk about any issues, and I rarely even mention anything to anyone. Much easier on everyone. So the problem becomes when I can’t solve the issue by myself. That’s why I’ve been very stressed for a long time now. I’ve been very alone in a situation that grew worse, and I’ve not felt understood in why I’ve taken the decisions I’ve had to take by those I’ve confided in. Which makes me feel taken lightly in a bad situation, leading to further stress and isolation from the world around me. 

I hope that explanation of my personality makes it a little easier for you to understand why the story has come to where it is today.

I’ve been having a hard time recently, and I have had a hard time getting that understood. This has led to me feeling very stressed and I seem to be one of those people that have a problem eating if I get too stressed. It’s like I just can’t eat at all. Usually I am on the other side of the spectrum, alway having to control myself so I don’t eat too much and make sure I eat healthily. So during this period I’ve lost weight a little bit quicker than might have been advisable. I’ve stayed mindful that this is a problem, trying to not completely skip eating and I’ve drunk a lot of water to help me stay alert. A little habit I used to have from years back, is to take a bath when I’m cold, to heat up. I used to do this often, especially when trying one diet after the other. A lot of diets can leave you feeling really cold, so this time when I’ve had these problems eating I’ve taken a lot of baths to heat myself up.

Today I tell Mark about how it got to this place and that I want to return to ordinary eating habits as quickly as possible. He got really worried from what happened last night and I want to calm him down regarding that. I tell him about the stress and how that has made me unable to eat. And that this stress has been there for quite a long time by now, so my body needs to gently get back to normal eating habits. 

Mark listens. Actively. It feels nice to feel heard. I’m not sure how much he understands, but he is starting to puzzle together an image of where I’m coming from. We talk for hours and hours. Of how I feel both mentally and physically. A lot of the subjects I bring up seem to be outside of his normal experiences but he is a great speaking companion. It’s great that he actively listens and tries not to judge. 

Mark:

After dinner I cry in front of Maja for the first time. I have a chunk of my tongue missing. It got ripped off in a hospital accident when I was four years old and very much conscious. I’ve told the story many times, but have only cried once while telling it, which was during a counselling session when I was deep into my fibromyalgia years. Today I cry not for myself but for thoughts my mother and the ordeal she suffered as a result of my own trauma. She was only in her early to mid twenties at the time and what she saw would have mentally scarred the most battle hardened of people.

I was five years old, maybe four. For the purposes of this, I’ve decided I was four. I was in hospital for what was something of an experimental operation on a cleft palate which came as part of the deal of having a hare lip. This cleft is essentially a hole in the roof of the mouth, near the front. The idea to close it was to open up the skin up there, do the same to the end of my tongue, and then surgically attach the two together. The idea was that the two would become anatomically fused, then in a second operation, the tongue could be cut away, leaving the new skin behind, thus closing the hole. I was five, maybe four.

I naturally couldn’t talk much after this operation. There was some debate of me having a kind of signalling device for when I wanted attention. My mum suggested a whistle. I suggested a trumpet. We never got that far.

Although it was an NHS operation, I had a private room. I often did when I had operations at Booth Hall hospital where I was very well known by most of the staff, at least on this particular ward. My physical progress since birth had been so good that there were pictures of me on the wall in the main corridor to show it. This was among pictures of many of the other young patients unfortunate enough to have to frequent a place such as this. My surgeon was the legendary John Lendrum, known to me even deep into adult life, only as Mr Lendrum. His work in the treatment of hare lips and cleft palates was revolutionary and experimental and I believe he spent some time working in developing countries in this very field. I never saw him again once my time in his care was over, which was probably around the early teenage years, and he died in 2015 leaving behind a considerable legacy.

I think this is an excellent opportunity to post up my own selected excerpts of this tribute to him which I found on the website livesonline.rcseng.uk

He was appointed as a consultant plastic surgeon to the North West Region, at three widely separated hospitals – Booth Hall Children’s Hospital, Withington Hospital and Rochdale. It was a good thing that he enjoyed driving, usually fast, in coloured sports cars, with the top down. The stories of his car parking activities in the various hospitals were legendary. My mum said that this sounded exactly like the man she remembered. 

J L was a skilled surgeon. He taught all the time and enjoyed watching young surgeons develop under his guidance and inspiration. He hated management interference with his ability to provide the best possible service for his patients. He was not a committee man and never sought high office in any association, but was elected to the council of BAPS in 1984 and did much useful work chairing the manpower planning and development committee, shaping the future of plastic surgery. John was elected an honorary member of BAPS in 1995. He was an honorary associate of the University of Manchester.

John enjoyed painting and retirement enabled him to paint more. He described himself as an artist with a 35-year interruption for a surgical career! He was a member of the Medical Artists’ Association.

John was a colourful individual; he was loyal and generous, took great care of his patients and staff, but could be rebellious and outrageously incorrect! 

I have no idea what that last statement means, but I’m sure you get the picture. From what I take away from this, basically a man who knew what he was doing, cared deeply about it and what it meant to the people under his care – one of which was of course me – and had absolutely no time for people who had no idea what they were talking about interfering in any of his business in any way.

I was sitting watching TV – Lassie since you’re asking – when a nurse came in on her own. I was five, maybe four.

I didn’t know exactly what she wanted, but she was holding a syringe with a scary looking needle attached. I’d had all kinds of injections and needles since birth so the sight of a needle in the hands of an adult who was about to puncture me with it was already routine. It  held absolutely no fear for me. But this lady was alone and that did. She didn’t even say anything to me, just came towards me as though I was an object she could just stick things in. I wasn’t having that and moved away from her. She wasn’t having that and moved closer to me, at speed. I moved away from her again. She wasn’t having that and came again until the two of us were walking, then running round in circles around the room. Yes, a grown adult, in some petty state of thwarted authoritarian petulance by now at having been disobeyed by a small child, was chasing said small child around a hospital ward brandishing a needle. I started to say no, no, no. Then more. I was five, maybe four.

I screamed.

Yep. Everything just came apart.

I have no memory of that. I remember watching the TV, I remember her coming in, I remember the running round in circles bit. Between that and my mum and her mum entering the room – walking or running I have no idea – I have nothing. For what happened in between I have to rely on the memory of my mother, who wouldn’t even talk of this to me until almost 30 years later, such was the trauma it inflicted upon her. My grandmother never spoke to me of it and I can’t believe it’s a topic I would never have raised with her. What they encountered was me screaming, a bemused nurse, and blood. Horror movie blood. All in my mouth, all down my chin, and all over my white hospital gown and all onto the floor. Enough to slip in. I know that I was quickly sedated, then anaesthetised and operated on again to tidy up this mess. Within that, I lost the end of my tongue and the roof of my mouth was significantly collapsed and similarly scarred. The hold that they were trying to patch up was worse than it had been when it started, although over the years it has mostly closed, just by dint of my growing, so they could have just waited for that to happen and spared us all the – quite literal – pain, not to mention the, again quite literal, sweat blood and tears.

The nurse, I have no idea what happened to her and don’t want to speculate. The operation was abandoned as far as I know and, due to my own selective amnesia of the episode, I was spared the trauma that affected those two female generations. So I’ve always been able to tell the story with a bit of a jokey demeanour. But today I tell Maja of it from the point of view of my mother. It’s too much to think of and I’m barely through it when the tears come. Another little thing that brings us that much closer together.

Maja:

After getting back after dinner, Mark approaches me with what I think of his harelip. I tell him that I don’t really think that much of it. He continues with asking me, you must think something of it. No, not really. I mean, I can see that your upper lip is mainly scar tissue, and it feels a bit strange kissing you. It’s not like kissing anyone I’ve ever kissed before. But I’m OK with that. Mark is really happy that I seem to be so unbothered by it. I mean it was a big shock when I first kissed him, it just felt a bit off. It’s stubblier than usual. Yes, that’s a word now. Since there’s not much of the pink lip tissue, and the stubble starts just where the lip ends, the stubble kind of cuts into my lips when he needs a shave.  And also, his tongue is significantly shorter than normal, which kind of threw me off balance the first time, before I knew what had happened. 

When I’ve thought about this, I’ve seen and noticed the scar tissue, but things like that are deeply personal, so I haven’t been wanting to pry. I decided that I’m going to wait until he wants to tell me the story and that seems to be now. So he talks. And talks. And I get the opportunity to ask questions.

To me this story is worse than I could ever have imagined. So I just listen, and I feel with him, and hug him tightly as he cries. He cries, violently. For the loss of part of his tongue. For the hospital abuse that left him forever mutilated. For the trauma inflicted upon his mother and family seeing everything happening to him as they arrived in the immediate aftermath. For the time and time again of broken promises of surgically fixing the face. For the hope those promises gave, that continued being crushed. Time and time again.

To describe how it looks, his upper lip is almost nonexistent. The lower lip goes outward as a usual lip does, but the upper lip doesn’t have much of that soft pink lip tissue. There is a ton of scar tissue that seems to be connecting the lip tissue with the nose. And that tissue is so tight he has almost no movement there. And the nose is completely surgically made as well, but that story is for another day. 

Mark:

Let’s make this the other day. I was born without a nose. How did I smell? Terrible. Bum bum. Somehow, I have no idea how, it was constructed in the first days and weeks of my life. I think. Apparently it’s ridiculously hard. Or at least Maja says it is. She thinks it’s really funny. 

Maja:

My nose is soft and moves all over the place, I can make the tip touch my cheek, but Marks. Come on. It doesn’t move. At all. Hard as a stone. And quite big. Stone nose. Iron nose. 

His tongue looks like someone has chopped off maybe an inch or so and tried to sew it back together, so the tip of the tongue is missing. The whole thing is short and still has visible signs of where the stitches were. Honestly, if you just look at him, you won’t notice much of what I’ve been talking about, but I am still impressed by how well he manages to do everything, especially with respect to the many missing teeth, most of them being the upper ones.

Mark:

About those missing teeth. It’s not all gaps and stuff, like a boxer’s missing teeth, or the teeth of someone who’s really badly neglected them. They do all meet in the middle. It’s just that there are certain teeth most people have that I just don’t. Like the two little bunny teeth at the top in the middle. You see, I have no gum there. I just don’t. I know. I’m getting more attractive by the second.

Maja:

Just saying, I find Mark quite handsome. We’ve been discussing some of the drawbacks for a while now, so I thought it ought to be said.

I guess he has thought of the horrific tongue incident many times, but today he, for the first time in a long while, re-lives it once more. I feel honoured and happy that he wants to share his stories with me. It’s also nice to not be the only one that is talking.

Tuesday February 23

Maja:

Another day, another good look at the ceiling. There’s really not that much possible to do, when the room is too small to even stand up and stretch in. Not that we don’t try to do that at times. It’s quite refreshing, now that the stresses around me have started to reduce themselves. I can just be here. I don’t have to do anything else. And the view from the window is great. 

For me, it’s not like I have any big purpose for what I am going to do here in London. It’s not like I came here to do anything touristy, or even to work. I’m just here, right now, right here. Without plans, without purpose. It was hard enough to get to where I am right now, and I don’t really fancy going anywhere else.

Mark:

I’m supposed to have a rehearsal/recording session with Sarah today but she gets in touch asking if I wouldn’t mind putting it off for now. No problem. 

Which means me and Maja can just continue as we are. She’s now started speculating that she could be anywhere in the world; all she’s seen for days now is the ceiling of this room, and the inside of the house. She hasn’t even ventured out to the garden yet, or at least not for anything more than a little look. Brazil, we say. Yes. We could well be in Brazil. Why not? As for me, well I’ve not seen much more since she’s been here. The furthest I’ve ventured is out to the shops, so I’ve only been out of the house for around fifteen minutes at a time, and often even less with the most basic shops just right across the road.

Our thoughts are turning more and more towards music and the possibility of her playing with me and Sarah. I admit that Sarah suggested first that Maja play with us and I nixed that idea saying she wasn’t experienced enough, but now I’m starting to think it could be possible; with me and Sarah being a bass only affair, there are all kinds of more simple lines Maja could play below my lines to give more depth to things. At first, we start to talk about rehearsing on our own in the house to have ideas and sections to present to Sarah. This then quickly and seamlessly morphs into, ‘why don’t we do our own thing as well?’ Oh, we really are going and getting excited now, and we start to talk about songwriting and our relevant experiences here. Maja became the main songwriter in Mad Box and I have my own adventures deep in the past, but nevertheless, they are there. Could I be about to start revisiting my songwriting bits again?

 It looks like that could very much be happening. Soon we’re talking about getting started with writing lyrics and wondering what kinds of songs we would write. We’ve been having little silly conversations supposing all kinds of nonsensical scenarios out of nothing. Today Maja starts supposing how you could get someone to love you and we started to think about how that could magically happen, and how a magical object could be developed from that. Before too long we come up with the beanie hat you wear and an idea is born. From that, we have a lyrical concept. Time to get working on it.

Maja:

OK, Mark. Enough crazy talk here. This is crazy. Me, who is just starting out, starting an originals project with you. I’m just not good enough. But it’s not really like there’s anything else happening right now, and I might just be crazy enough to entertain this idea. 

It’s a fun idea, and there’s nothing really that beats lying in bed, joking and writing down the silly thoughts that come out of our jokes. Like, what’ll happen if you put a magical hat on someone, so make them fall in love with you. But it’ll have to be a beanie. In my head I hear the melody of baby love as I sing, Beanie Love. 

Today I also call a couple of my friends in Stockholm to tell them I’m not around anymore and why. They turn out to be very emotional and hard phone calls to make, but nonetheless necessary and good to do. I’m met with sympathy, and albeit happy for that, I feel kind of strange. I’m not used to that kind of behaviour. 

Mark:

Then, how to realise all this? I have my bass and Maja will of course be buying a bass soon, but maybe we need a guitar. Then suddenly it comes to me. ‘I have a guitar. Or at least I think I do.’ I’m sure I bought one especially for songwriting a good while ago, then somehow I left it with Dan. I think. Why the hell I might have done that I have no idea, but I could put a call into him and see if I did and if he still has it.

Now we’ve decided we might actually do something musical together, I take a walk round to the shop and come back with three notebooks. We now have something to get started in. And we do.

I guess this is the point in the story where it could be written that the guy and the girl are in their room all the time just doing drugs. But we don’t do anything like that and know by now that that’s something neither of us is into at all. Yes, alcohol is a drug but in these four days we haven’t even had a drink. Neither have we watched TV. Not even so much as a Youtube video. No music either. Playing or listening. If we have anything you could call a drug it would be just ourselves and being with each other. And we might just both be starting to become addicted.

Maja:

I think there’s a song in that. Addicted to love.

Wednesday February 24

Maja:

So I’m married, and that fact makes everything so much harder. When I first got kissed on the porch, the first thought that flew through my mind was, I’m not going to be able to go back. And do I really want to go back to what I have over there? I’ve tried to ignore the fact, and I’m not really ready to take any decision, but I hate even the thought of me cheating. That’s not who I am. Period. So what in the world am I doing? I’m leaving something behind. A marriage. That’s what I have to give up to continue on this path, and I’m not fond of that. It makes me really sad. The only thing I wanted in the beginning was to be myself and make music. And that is leading all the way to this, slowly, slowly but in the end, that’s where all the “you can’t do this” leads to. 

But I can’t think too much about this today. I just can’t handle analysing everything that happened. I just know that I’m falling in love. I want to be with Mark, and I really enjoy talking to him, being with him. Right now, that’s everything I want. I just want to be here. Right here, right now. Is that really that bad?

We’re definitely more than friends now, right?

Mark:

We have no choice. We have to acknowledge that we’re in some kind of relationship. Or that we have something. We have no idea what, but there is definitely a something here. But yes, Maja is married and very much just on a break of which she’s vaguely said would be in the region of two months. When I suggest that she can just go back when she’s ready, if that’s what she ultimately decides to do, she says that with all that’s gone on between us just in these past five days, she can’t go back now. So where does that leave anything?

It might seem like there’s been a whole lot of serious analytical chat going on and that would be right. But in between, sometime right in between, there’s been a whole lot of laughter. I’ve laughed with Maja more and harder than I’ve ever laughed with anyone. And by now we’re also starting to realise that we react the same way to a lot of situations. Some of that Maja knows from reading certain Diary episodes. But also, in all kinds of situations we’ve spoken about and been through over the past six weeks or so, professional and very personal. And of course we’re learning a lot about each other within these four walls and under this ceiling. The biggest of these we’re learning about is the many parallels we have in career trajectories and the breakdowns we both had.

I was a journalist and rose very quickly – once I finally made it in. Journalism is ridiculously hard to break into, to the point that it starts to actually seem impossible. And indeed, most people do give up. I didn’t, although I didn’t get my first break until I had just turned 23. But within a year I had doubled my starting salary, and before I turned 25 I was a magazine editor and foreign correspondent. I carried on for quite a few more years, continuing to progress and loving it loving it loving it. Then, as I approached 30, I realised I was declining physically and mentally on the job until I just simply couldn’t function anymore. A low point came when I was called into a management meeting – really. Me, two editors and an executive – and told in a diplomatic roundabout way that I was slacking and letting myself and the team down. What I kinda remember them actually saying was that if I had some idea of what would work best for me and if readers really liked it, then they would pay me more. The other side of that coin was the hint that what I was currently doing wasn’t worth what they were paying me. I think this could be called a professional intervention. A few weeks later, I was done and out of the media game.

Maja:

It’s interesting to get to know a little bit more about the Mark from before his diaries, and he shares many stories which I listen to intensely. I can’t help but discover a lot of similarities between our professional lives. What’s extremely telling is that we both entered very highly advanced fields, worked and thrived there for years until we ran face first deep into the wall. We both know how it feels to have our head a foot length deep into the wall, not knowing that it was there, and then the inevitable crash that comes afterwards. You don’t realise when you’re well past the point of no return. At least we never did. You go forward, doing everything you used to do, perhaps adding a lot of training to take care of yourself because you notice that you need something. But apart from that, completely oblivious of the damage your stressed out lifestyle is inflicting you. 

Mark:

Oh yes. The training thing. When I first realised I was deep tired, I was already training twice a week with a semi professional rugby team, plus playing in their third team. But my response to being tired? Not cut back on training. No. It was just obvious to me that I was tired because I wasn’t fit enough. So the response – more training. Maja laughs quite bitterly when I mention this.

Maja:

I never knew until it was too late. Neither did he. I continued to work, train, do band rehearsals and meet friends, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. I planned every minute of my time, trained 11 hours a week, band rehearsal maybe 7 to 10 hours a week and I was home after 10 pm almost every day and out around 7 am. All the time. I was emotionally available to anyone needing to talk, and took good care about everything. On top of all this I always did my absolute best at work, and had a top salary for my age, with huge responsibilities and a good reputation.

It’s special to talk about this with someone that experienced the same things, albeit in a slightly different way. For him this was years ago, and he found his way forward through yoga and music. He never returned to journalism. For me, this is right here and right now.

I’m still stumbling. 

Mark:

I hear today that the big story in the Diaries that really resonated with Maja, and which confirmed her thought once and for all that we shared very similar wavelengths, was the day me and Paul rescued the young girl who was lost, desperate and on the verge of being homeless at Euston Station, one of the very last places in London you would want to be a young girl who is lost, desperate and on the verge of being homeless. As she read that, she realised that she would have acted the same way as I did pretty much from the beginning to the end of the episode. That is, I was initially cynical yet open minded, which gave way to acceptance, openness and help, and then I stayed with her with Paul until it was just me and her for the last hour or so until I finally saw on a train to the house of a relative of hers who I’d been in communication with since the first few minutes of the encounter.

Maja:

For me this story proved an important judgement of character. I actually have a similar story, helping an eight month pregnant lady asking people for help in a supermarket. I still think of her at times, wondering how she’s doing. I hope she’s well. I can’t remember the exact circumstances but she’d been at a house viewing, forgot her wallet somewhere so she couldn’t take the train home to another town, her phone ran out of battery and she was hungry. I was sceptical at first, but then realised her situation, we got into my car and drove home, and I gave her some leftovers from the night before, let her rest and charge her phone and gave her money for the train. She was immensely grateful, and I felt a little bit guilty for not believing her at once. Everyone she asked looked the other way. I was also so sceptical I was almost not helping her. I’m really glad I did though. So reading this story about Mark, really made me feel like he reacted in the same way as me. It felt honest, but not riskful. Wise in a way. This little story he posted ages ago, made me feel a little bit like this is a nice guy. Probably trustworthy.

Mark:

Since Maja arrived, we haven’t left the tiny room together for any sustained period of time. Most of it has been spent in there with just bathroom and shower breaks, punctuated only by trips to the kitchen for food. But even there, eating has been ridiculously sporadic and mostly still taken place in the bedroom. The weather hasn’t been great to be fair, but it’s sunny today and Maja really wants us both to go out and sit in the sun. So out we go and join Sam, who Maja joyously chats with. There have been one or two chats with Sam and Cris and when it’s been one on one with Maja and one of those guys, I’ve pretty much stayed out of it, allowing them to get to know each other without my input. I’ve spoken enough to all of them. It’s the same now as we lie back in the deckchairs and take in the February sun. This is something Maja is really having a wonderfully tough time to process. February sun. Back in Sweden they’re still up to their waists in snow and battling temperatures touching minus double figures. Now, here she is wearing sunglasses and the bare minimum of clothes, reclining in what she was jokingly referring to last week as tropical London. Well today it really is something of a dictionary definition of tropical as far as anyone in Sweden would be concerned. 

Cris joins us now and it’s clear that him and Sam have been starting to come to the same conclusions the two of us have been coming to, with Cris revelling in jokes about the lovebirds. At this, me and Maja just look at each other and laugh. The whole scene gives way to a really warm garden hang with us providing the tunes from Maja’s phone for an early summer soundtrack.

Maja:

It’s been nice hanging out with Sam and Cris a little bit as well. I like them both, they’re great. I don’t think Sam is out to be good friends, with him a feel more of a nice flatmate vibe. Which is very nice as well. I’m a bit more curious about Cris, who is the singer of one of the bands Mark plays with at times -The Wild Child. He is teasing us a little bit, calling us birdy birds. But he is rarely at home, and I look forward to getting to know him better at a later stage.

Mark:

Inspired by the music, when we’re left alone, Maja turns the conversation round to basses and suggests we start looking at what she could buy. For the first time, we’re looking at the same screen as Maja starts thinking about what her next bass could look like. Then she surprises me by asking, ‘What kind of bass would you like to play? I’m now thinking of buying two.’ Her reasoning is that if this is the case, she might as well buy at least one I’d really like to play. I’m good with just my Washburn to be fair, but I’m happy to give my input here and start to think about something I would also like to work with.

It takes a while, but we finally settle on a Lakland and a Sadowsky and both pretty much mid to top of the range. Of course we’ve not been able to try either out, but they look beautiful, very classy, and it goes without saying that the actual quality of them will be right up there with the best. Will they be nice to play? Impossible to say but I’m sure we’ll get used to whatever little differences we find. Maja hits the buy button with complete confidence. With names like these, you really can’t go wrong. Worst case, she reasons, if she doesn’t like one, she’ll at least like the other. Then I can make myself like the other one.

Maja: 

Before I was going to England, I played a lot of bass and was just starting to get serious with it, so I decided that I would buy one to have while I was here. I had kind of decided on a decent budget for this already. Since last autumn I’ve been eyeing the Fender professional II J bass. I played it in the music store, and it was just something else. So I thought that I could use the money for that bass to buy something in London instead and bring that one back with me later. 

So we start to look at music shops, and I realise that instead of buying one bass, I can afford two decent basses, so I could just buy one that Mark would like to play as well. Maybe. Looking around I find a Shadowsky and a Lakland that look really nice, so I decide to go for both. Since I can’t test them in the store because of covid, I could at least send one of them back if I’m unlucky. But they are great brands, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.

London, day six

Thursday February 25

Maja:

Mark is supposed to have his rehearsal with Sarah today. Apart from that, we haven’t been playing much music since I got to London, which means it’s time to start now. Mark has a riff he’s been playing with Sarah that he needs to remember for today. It’s a simple enough riff; it’s just that internalising the phrasing is kind of hard. So is there a better way to internalise new melodies than to teach them to someone? That’s the thought when he starts teaching me the riff for the song white rabbit. It’s simple enough, but the repetitiveness of it makes it easy to get lost in it, and that is why he needed to rehearse it some more. And for me, it’s quite amazing to be able to be of any kind of help. And I finally get to try the iconic Washburn that Mark has been using for all these years. It plays beautifully. It feels so special to have it in my hands. The bass that’s been accompanying him for all these adventures during all these years. Playing it, I feel more connected to Mark.

Mark:

Yeah. That White Rabbit thing. No idea why. It has just refused to stick in my head. This is where listening, listening, listening comes in but it still refuses to stick. No panic. I’ll get there.

In other, perhaps more significant news, Maja stops me cold and short today when, somewhere in the middle of chatting, she asks me if I’d be up for having kids. ‘I’m not saying I want them now,’ she says, ‘but if I’m to start a relationship with anyone, I have to know this is something that could be a possibility in the future.’ I get it. But the crazy thing is, not only do I not think there’s anything strange about the question, but I say yes straight away. Again, not now. But sometime in the future. I’m saying I would not rule it out and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to even entertaining the idea in my whole life. Since I was little more than a child I’ve said that I would never have kids and I’ve never come close to changing that viewpoint. Until now. And it feels totally natural to say that. What the hell is happening here? Apart from anything else, yesterday we were talking about not knowing where we were, and now we’re talking about kids. And a relationship? Well, this is certainly a something.

Maja:

I’m enjoying the time we spend together, talking, reflecting on life. And before any commitment, I’d like to know how Mark stands on some of the big things of life. Like kids. It’s only natural I ask. I’m relieved when the answer of yes comes back, with full confidence. It’s just such a shame that we don’t have that much longer to talk about it, because it is time for Mark’s rehearsal. Good luck.

Mark:

But, more than just a rehearsal with Sarah, today is the day we’re going to do a full recording of our show to see what we have and maybe have a template to start to show people.

As usual I’m taking all my gear including amp, so Sarah is coming here to help me carry it to hers. Yes I can manage it all myself but this is a nice little regular gesture from her and it does make things a little easier. But she has a slight ulterior motive this time which she has not been at all shy in hiding. She wants to meet Maja. But Maja very much wants to meet her as well. Afterall, this will be her first encounter with any of my London music friends, and so her first real encounter with the actual scene.

Maja:

I’m a bit excited. I haven’t really met any people since I arrived apart from Mark and our flatmates, and rightly so because of the quarantine. I’m still allowed to be on our premises, which includes our front porch, so I’ll be OK to go out and say hello to Sarah. When I hear the knock on our door, I follow Mark upstairs, getting all nervous. Mark opens the door with a key, wait what, he uses a KEY??? I don’t have a key yet. Does that mean I can’t get out? What kind of house needs a key to get out? This is all very strange.

Mark:

Oh yeah. I’ve forgotten to tell Maja about this key thing, or to get one cut for her. What if she really does need to get out for any reason? But even apart from that, without a key, she’s not just willingly in quarantine, she really is actually locked in. Oops. I’ve accidentally kidnapped Maja.

Maja:

Outside, a very excited and giddy girl awaits us. She looks so excited to see us. Like a little child she is bubbling and bouncing with excitement. Hello hello hello. I get all shy and try to act normal, say hello and everything. It’s obvious that she wants to say hello with a hug, and who am I to resist? We do some small talk, and then it’s time for them to leave for rehearsal. Both say goodbye and they start to leave. Wait what? Just like that?

‘Hey Mark, can you come here?’ Mark comes back to the door, I grab him by the collar and kiss him. See you later. I can see how he turns all flustered and red as he says ‘see you soon’ and locks the door.

I walk downstairs, to my room. I’m quite tired so I take a nap, but I can’t stop thinking: What kind of house needs a key to get out of???

I know I’m gonna get one, it’s just been forgotten since I’m self isolating. But still, what if a fire started or something? I just don’t get it, what about guests? You lock them in with you? What if you were creepy and the guest wanted to leave, they need to ask permission from the host that they’re trying to get away from. This is just not OK. How can they build houses like this? Is it only this house that is like this, maybe it’s the landlord that’s exceptionally cheap and hasn’t installed a proper door? But still.

Why do you have to lock people inside the house?

Mark:

These are all very good points and I have never thought about any of them, although it’s quite normal to have doors like this in the UK. Don’t ask me why, it just is. As a result of this system I’ve found myself locked in the house plenty of times, when I’ve been just about to leave and not able to find my key. And yes, then managing to make myself late, or even very late for whatever it was I was about to leave for. Very relevant digression. I once stayed over at a friend’s house – the house had a double lock so it could be locked from the outside but could still be opened from the inside. Unless someone actually did lock it from the outside, which my friend kindly didn’t do when they went to work. However, the housemates didn’t know I was in the house so yes. When they went to work, the door got locked from the outside. Cue a very embarrassed Mark having to call the office to say he can’t get to work today as he’s managed to get himself locked in a friend’s house and can’t go anywhere until someone comes back. Oh well. It was a nice day off.

I’m all packed and ready by around 5pm when there’s a knock at the door. ‘She’s here,’ says Maja. Indeed she is. We walk upstairs, I open the door, and Sarah’s standing there, all totally expectantly. ‘Are we hugging?’ We are. With that, the two of them are out in the small front garden hugging and talking excitedly like sisters who haven’t seen each other for too long. I leave them to it and go and get the rest of my stuff from downstairs. When I come back up, they’re still there and still both talking a hundred miles an hour. Finally, Sarah says, ‘OK Mark, are we ready to go?’ Yep. Once again, Maja tells her that but for the quarantine rules she’d love to be coming along. Next time, Sarah promises. Yes, of course. Next time. I’m kinda playing it cool with Maja, not wanting to be too ‘public’ in front of Sarah, so I just say goodbye and Maja goes into the house and we start to walk away. Then Maja calls me back to the front door. Oh, OK. I go back and she gives me a goodbye kiss right there in front of Sarah who, as I turn back, is looking on open mouthed, in stunned, delighted shock. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No.’ Yes. With that she goes off on a celebratory skip down the road before returning, giggling like someone 20 years younger, to help me with the gear.

On the way I tell Sarah how me and Maja have been talking and I think we could incorporate her into the act in a way I didn’t think was possible a few days ago. Sarah is well up for the idea, saying it is much more about attitude than playing, and that if Maja has one thing, based on what she’s just seen for the first time, it’s attitude. ‘And you guys are just right together,’ she says. ‘I could see that straight away. Now, if you can take that chemistry and turn it into music, you have gold, no matter what levels of ability you’re talking about.’ That sets off a spark in me. Yes, this really could be something to think about. And with that, me and Maja have a project. And definitely something to talk about later.

But oh dear. With everything that’s been going on over the past week, I am woefully underprepared for today’s session in which we intend to do a full, recorded rehearsal of our short show, which is five songs all segued into each other. I’ve barely touched the bass all week. I had a tiny little play today just as I realised this, just to make sure I could remember the rhythmic parts of what we’re doing and how each song goes into the next one. But as for the solo I have to do, I am way out of practice and am just going to have to make sure I’m warmed up, and fall back on what I’ve actually come up with rather than trying to improvise a bunch of cool stuff around it which is what I usually do. This is not a time for risk-taking in my playing. While I’m on the subject of practice, I really should address my Players Path journey, or lack of. Yes, I got right to the end of level nine, with a video for every track. But what I really wanted to do, right from the beginning of it all, was to record a single video of all the tracks, kind of like making a recording of a live show. To do that, I was studying some of the theory related to soloing and improvising within them and wanted to nudge myself onto that next level before moving onto this stage of the project. I had one tiny window to record that, a Sunday a few weeks ago when I had a few hours alone in the house when I could have got this done. But I hesitated, thinking I still wanted to check out just a few things before being ready. Then all this started kicking off and I’ve not fully been back to it since. Now by this stage, I’m really out of practice with it all. Gone totally backwards to be fair. Forget nuances, I would need to totally relearn whole sections of songs before even thinking of details of theory within them. As such, this project has to be declared on ice for now. But hey, I still managed to record a video for every song.

As it is, when we get to working with Sarah today, I’m barely holding on to what I can play with her stuff. But that’s alright. Sarah isn’t in great shape preparationwise either which lets me off the hook actually. It looks like we’ve both let ourselves go a bit, but we do each have a lot of experience and technique to fall back on. All this means it takes six or seven takes to get a full one take recording of our show. In between we just go with it and have a laugh at our own little hiccups and mistakes which we pretty much equally share which means I can feel a little less guilty at not being as prepared as I would normally be. Of this, Sarah is totally understanding given what’s been going on this week. More, she loves it and loves the story of where we are.

Just as I’m about to leave, I realise Sarah has an acoustic guitar. Of course she does. We’ve been using it to get a few concepts together, and there it is in the corner of the room. Could I possibly borrow that please for me and Maja to work on? Of course you can, she says. Brilliant. With that, we’re sorted.

Maja:

I fall asleep soon after Mark leaves for rehearsal, and I really need the rest. It’s wonderful to spend time together, and I’d rather do that, but if I’m alone, I want to sleep. All of a sudden, I’m woken up by someone walking down the stairs, and opening my door. Yes! He’s home! I sit up as quickly as possible and say hello.

In his hand he has a guitar, I wasn’t expecting that. Cool. I guess he plays the guitar, and has a plan about this, but I don’t know that much about this yet. But it’s always nice to have a guitar around, especially for songwriting.

Mark:

Oh yeah. Maja, I can play guitar.

Maja:

We soon make ourselves comfortable and continue talking. I’m not that good of a musician and I know that Mark pretty much only ever works with very skilled musicians. So when he opens up with the possibility of me working with him and Sarah, I’m shocked. You can’t mean me, joining you guys? Doing what? What? I was kinda expecting to maybe be able to join to watch a rehearsal, but really, I wasn’t even expecting that. I’m a beginner, and I play bass, the same instrument as Mark. So what am I going to do? Mark has been thinking that we both could play bass, he has some kind of concept that he is starting to build up in his mind. A concept that wouldn’t be too advanced for me and would support what he’s doing. Amazing.

Apparently, I’ve moved to London, without any set plans, and within a week I’ve joined my first band. I could even say my first professional band, since we’re planning shows and Mark and Sarah are, well, professionals. Just, wow. Or, wowsers, as Sarah would say.

I start to talk, going on about why one would go to London. No-one would go to London like I did, not after Brexit, not during Covid. I just continue to talk, just putting words on the thoughts that come out of my head, like a stream of running water. 

Mark:

It’s with some excitement that I return home and bring the guitar into the room to show Maja. And with it, the news that Sarah loves the idea of the two of us playing together with her. So it’s game on. We’re starting to reach whole new levels now. We’re talking about having kids, playing together in the same band, and also thinking about our own style and songs, which we can write on this new guitar we now have. Maja came to London to get away from something. Now she’s starting to feel she also went towards something. ‘What do you come to London for?’ she asks. ‘For the music scene, which doesn’t exist, but here we are talking about music. There are so many other reasons to come. But I just didn’t expect to come to London and fall in love.’

What now?

She continues talking, musing quietly to herself really, with me as an incidental audience. But I’ve zoned out. I’m thinking about what she’s just said and thinking how I should respond. Afterall, we’ve spoken about this being something of a relationship, and just a few hours ago we were talking about having kids together, or at least whether or not we were open to the possibility of it. And all the while we’ve been becoming closer and closer in every other way. As friends too. As close friends. As even best friends. Yeah. That’s how it feels, with the depth with which we talk, and the highs as well. Filled with the kind of joyful spontaneous shared laughter I’ve experienced with very few people before, or maybe even no-one before. And she’s said the word now. I think it’s my turn. She’s still talking but for once I’m not fully listening. She can see that because she comes to a faltering stop around the same time as I interject saying, ‘Maja…’ ‘Yes?’

‘I love you.’ A breath, a pause. It’s out there now.

‘I love you too.’

Maja:

All of a sudden, when my thoughts and words finally slow down Mark says:

‘I love you’.

I look him in the eyes, wondering where this came from all of a sudden. I stop to take a breath, to allow myself to think for a second. 

‘I love you too’.

Mark:

No more words are needed. No more words are spoken. This is almost too much to take. It kind of really is too much to take. I think it’s really happened. The magical, elusive formula, the ideal of countless books, movies and songs. I’m in love with my best friend. And she’s in love with me. To hopelessly paraphrase and misquote the movie Notting Hill, ‘There are billions of people in the world and you’re sent out to find just one of them that you love. Not only that, but they have to love you back. The odds of that are millions to one.’ Yes. It really is something that seems impossible. Now, here we are. To steal again, this time from Jason Mraz: ‘Lucky I’m in love with my best friend/lucky to have been where we have been/lucky to be coming home again.’ As we settle blissfully into our new reality, I play this song for Maja. And for me. For us. And yes, as it plays, I cry in front of her for the second time. Oh Mark, pull yourself together.

Then reality comes back to us. ‘Mark,’ she says. ‘Yes?’ ‘You do realise I’m still married?’ ‘Yes.’ And I have Jenn, immediately below us downstairs. Different situation but even so. Maja stops and ponders all this, then explodes in a whisper. ‘Boy, we’re in trouble.’

Friday February 26

Maja:

Why can’t things be simple? Just why can’t I just simply be able to do what I want? What we want? There’s too many whys here, and it just doesn’t add up. 

Mark:

Why isn’t it spelt whies? Sorry. Not helpful. Carry on Maja.

Maja:

I just can’t get what I want in a simple way. Why does it have to start off with an impossible list? Why do I have to navigate a way through the impossible, just to be where I want with who I want? Yes, I’m complaining a lot right now, but it really feels like this. I can’t even stay here in this miniscule room for long, because of Brexit. Why does it have to be so complicated? 

I’m feeling a tiny bit of whelm here.

So, what do I have to do? 

Get a divorce, sell my apartment in Sweden, fix a new home for my dog Tommy, get a job in London, or some remote job at least, get an apartment in London, get a visa to be able to be here because of the stupid cursed Brexit. All of this, and I don’t even know where to start with the first one. How should I even approach that? How should I even think about that? I mean, I love him so much still, but I can’t be with him now. How do you even get a divorce? How am I going to be able to say that to him? How am I going to be OK? I don’t know how I should handle this. 

I just don’t know. 

This is impossible.

Mark:

Very quickly we’re realising that we’re going to need a bigger boat. We really have to take a pragmatic approach to what’s going on here.

To start with that, we make a list of what we need to overcome. We quickly call this the Impossible List. It looks like this.

Divorce, which means she’s going to have to make the actual call to say she wants one, and then have it granted and administered.

Organising/selling the apartment in Sweden

Getting a job in London, or some remote working job

Getting an apartment London, and lockdown London at that

Visa to be able to stay in post Brexit Britain, which will probably be dependent on whatever job she’s able to get, and even then, it will be a huge ask.

Tommy – her dog. What will happen with him?

For my part, I have to deal with Jenn and how to break that, while still living here for the time being. Oh, mini reveal of what you probably already knew if you’d thought about it. Me and Jenn are still sharing a room. Yes I’m with Maja a lot, and in her room a lot, but the big downstairs room is still mine and Jenn’s. In any case, the three of us are all still living in the same house. Awkward? You said that. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Maja:

Yeah, come on. The whole Jenn situation is really not helpful right now either. How are you going to square this circle Mark? I mean, just how?

Mark:

If that’s going to change, I have to figure out how the hell I’m going to make enough to pay my share of an apartment in London, with deposit. And if and when the move does happen, I also have to do the right thing which means, on top of that, keeping up my share of rent payments on the room here for at least a reasonable amount of time whatever that means. 

In this area, and anywhere else this central really, property is truly expensive; in many parts of the country you could get a two bedroom apartment for the price of the double room in this house. A one bedroom apartment, which is what we’re looking for, costs around twice the price of the room I’m currently paying for.

On top of all this, I’m currently on furlough. From a bar job. And get a new job? That could pay what all the above would require? Here? In lockdown, almost totally furloughed London? Don’t think so. Which means we have to come up with an idea or ideas for how I could make more money to help fund the new reality and whatever comes next.

Combining our situations, pick any one of the above and you’re looking at an insurmountable problem. As an entire list, it’s impossible. Just impossible. There’s no other word for it. We are totally deluding ourselves if we think we’re ever going to get that lot ticked off and somehow sail into the sunset. But amazingly, we manage to solve all the problems almost instantly. We do this by refusing to think about them. Then we realise that, while this might feel nice, it really isn’t a solution that’s sustainable for any amount of time.

The first real biggie is the possibility of a divorce. It’s huge that the situation has even come to this, but it is very much acknowledged that this would have been on the cards even without me, or anyone else, on Maja’s horizon; even if, instead of coming here, she’d decided to go to a Caribbean island on her own to have her much needed break and to get her head around everything, she probably still would have come to the conclusion that the marriage was over and that she would need to move ahead with that. So no, I don’t feel responsible for that and no, I don’t believe that anything we have done or said has precipitated that. Nevertheless, it is something that will have to be addressed and something that will ultimately have to happen. Along with the divorce is the attached inevitability of her having to sell their apartment in Sweden and get all that stuff organised; of course, the mere fact an apartment exists means there are a lot of things in it. Where the hell do you start with that? From here?

And if Maja is to divorce and stay here, we need to think about what that means. First, it means getting out of this room and into a place of our own. But she still has another three days of quarantine anyway, and today. So four days. Basically, she’s only just over halfway through quarantine and is thinking of not just being able to go outside, but of moving from here totally. Which brings us onto the next problem of how the hell to get an apartment in London and how the hell to pay for it. And to do that, I really need to up my financial game, and how the hell am I going to do that? In Covid, lockdown London? As it is, right now I’m on furlough so I have some kind of income, but nowhere near what you would need to pay for half a whole apartment, plus deposit, plus keep up my moral obligations here for a little while. It’s just possible, with everywhere being closed anyway, that we could look for a place a little further out, and so a little cheaper than the zone two we’re currently in which is touching distance from central London and a place I totally love. But the fact would still remain that I would need to find a considerably better income than I’m pulling in now. How?

And even if we achieve all this, Maja still has to be able to stay in the UK to make any of it workable. Pre Brexit that would have been no big deal. She’s European, UK was in the EU, not even a discussion. Live and work here, just like I went to Madrid to live and work all that time ago. Fully legally, with Spanish papers organised and everything. Almost did the same in Hamburg with Drunken Monkees; they even have a welcome centre there with all the bureaucratic offices under the same roof. Imagine. But all that’s changed now. All Maja has, and all she can have, is a travel visa which is valid for six months. Which means she can stay for at least that long. But she can’t work. How the hell are we going to square that circle? And all the other circles? All we have right now is a very very bad game of Tetris where nothing fits but it’s all coming down anyway.

But onto immediate issues, I have to tell Jenn where me and Maja are right now. She’s out when the time comes for this, so I arrange to meet her nearby when she’s on her way back. As soon as I make the phone call she knows something bad is coming and bitterly thanks me for ruining her day which she says was already a struggle because she’s been worried about what’s been going on here. Yes, we’re just friends, but friends who have lived together and supported each other for a long time and she can see that we are now nudging at the end of an era. We meet in the empty beer garden in The Vine across the road from the house. I don’t want to drag anything out so I just say it as soon as I can. ‘Me and Maja said the three words last night.’ I would like to say Jenn takes it well. She really doesn’t. But she does say this has come as no surprise to her as she’s been well aware of how we’ve been since Maja arrived. Bottom line, she asks to be given a few days to a week to process this new reality and then to maybe come round to accepting the situation. In that time, she says, I shouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t speak to either of us. Fair enough. 

Above I mentioned the fact that I have a bar job which I’m currently being paid for not doing. That reminded me that a certain amount of context had been missing from The Diaries, at least for people not familiar with Mark’s Diaries, which is my thing before me and Maja ended our respective diaries and started this thing. 

Practically my whole life in London, since I moved here from Madrid in October 2014, has revolved around bars, with my income pretty evenly split between payments from gigs in them and earnings from working in them. Governmental stay at home advice saw bars, among other businesses, being forced to close. With that, wages, or at least a good part of them, continued through furlough payments based, in my bar’s case, on average earnings over a given period before furlough began. Which has meant that I’ve been able to keep the wheels turning quite OK. It also meant that I was totally available for all Skype calls with Maja when we first started communicating with the whole website/bass mentor trade off thing, and then it meant I was able to be available for phone calls anytime day or night when the wheels of her life started wobbling. And it means I’m 100 per cent around now as well as she settles into the house and into London. So yes, Covid and it’s societal effects have been terrible. But for me and Maja, it’s really kind of worked in our favour. You really could say we are children of Covid. Or at the very least, if it hadn’t happened, for want of a better expression, we wouldn’t have even made it to first base. I wouldn’t have even been able to mentor her, or receive her website help, to the extent that I did, which, as you know, is how we really started communicating in the first place.

Maja:

Yes. If it hadn’t been for Covid, a lot of things that happened to me just wouldn’t have happened. It might even have been a trigger for why my marriage started to break down as well. And I certainly would never have picked up an instrument if it wasn’t for Covid. So then I would never have started a band, never joined SBL, never found Mark’s diaries, never started my own diaries, never contacted Mark. And I would probably live my whole life never even wanting to go to London, nevermind live there. I mean, why would I ever want to go there? I have my job, I work as a cloud/computer engineer, my training is way too many hours a week – I train aikido. If I was to do something crazy and new it would probably be going to an Aikido training camp in Japan for a year or so. But that never happened.

When the world came crashing down around me, so did everything that I knew.

London, day eight

Saturday February 27

Mark:

The basses arrive, along with a few accessories that were also ordered and it’s like Christmas. They look as beautiful as imagined. But all of a sudden, the tiny room has got even tinier. That’s OK. It’s for the sake of new basses. However, when we each have a little play of them, it’s fair to say we’re a little underwhelmed. This unpacking business has taken quite a while so we put our reservations down to high expectations and decide to leave them for now and come back to them when we have some time to really have a good look. Afterall, it could just be setup issues which could be easily fixed but which need a little more consideration that we’re really willing to give right now.

Instead, for the first time since we met we do something called TV watching. It’s kinda fun and we don’t do it for a great amount of time. There’s some discussion about what exactly to watch and we settle on Maja showing me Melodifestivalen. This is Sweden’s show to decide what their entry to Eurovision will be and it runs over several episodes and kinda looks like the final stages of The X Factor or American Idol. And it’s all set in Stockholm with location links from the presenters, which gives her a little revisit to her city and an opportunity to give me a virtual introduction. As we see the presenters in various locations, she talks to me a little about the sights, most notably those of Gamla Stan, the historic old part of the city.

Maja:

It’s fun to be able to introduce some things from my country to Mark. And if there’s one thing we both enjoy, it’s music. So why not take the opportunity to watch something live from Sweden, which encapsulates the best and worst of Sweden in the same short TV program without having to focus on really watching it? And we can have our own little guessing game. Perfect for tonight. 

Mark:

But mostly we concentrate on the songs and, as with all other things Eurovision, have a great time making our own selections about who should be going through and who should be going home. And also with all things Eurovision, we have great fun seeing our favourite selections completely ignored while songs we thought were total duds get the go ahead. Oh well. Songs eh? Everyone’s an expert and no-one knows anything. In fact, Ireland’s top music TV and radio personality Dave Fanning once spoke to me about the minefield of trying to gauge if a song is any good or not, saying, ‘No-one knows anything. There are no geniuses in this game.’

London, Day nine

Sunday February 28

Mark:

The day before the last day of Maja’s quarantine and excitement is mounting at her finally being able to get out and about. Out to see London, maybe out to see a friend or two of mine, because outdoor meetings of small groups is allowed. And of course, the possibility of the two of us getting out to rehearsals at Sarah’s. 

Maja:

I’m way too excited about this. I’ve not seen anything of this new country that I am currently residing in. Not anything apart from the calm neighbourhoodly view from my window. My feet are itching to be used. The weather’s been mockingly nice these last couple of days with the air bringing me a delightful spring taste. How will I manage to stay put during these last couple of days? Maja. Keep. Calm. You will get out. Soon. 

Mark:

But also, with Maja still not being able to go out, the priority is to really have a look at these basses and to see if we hadn’t been too harsh with first impressions. I’d had a look at the Lakland and Maja had mainly concentrated on the Sadowsky, but I think there’s been just a little bit of not really wanting to know because we didn’t want to have to admit the reality. But we have a look now and quickly conclude the truth after the excitement of New Bass(es) Day. These are objectively terrible. Not that we don’t like the setups or feels, but they are actually bad and should never have left the factory, let alone the shop. Both are full of fretbuzz for a start and no amount of tinkering with the action of either solves this problem. Then, the Sadowski’s frets, all the way down, protrude sharply to the side, meaning any playing up and down the fretboard would start to cut your hands apart. So no. Unplayable. The Lakland has similar issues and one of the screws in the body is rusty. Yes, actually rusty. If that’s what it looks like on the outside, what the hell is going on on the inside? No, we have no confidence in these basses at all. There are little physical alterations we could make to both, including truss rod adjustment, to realign the neck and eliminate fretbuzz, but if any adjustment doesn’t work, especially anything like attempting to file down frets, no refund would be issued as it would be argued that the basses had been physically meddled with. So they just have to go back. And not for resetups either. No. Nothing but a full refund will do. This particular shop will not be getting repeat custom from these quarters. 

Maja:

These new basses are just a disappointment. I can’t believe how bad they are. I thought buying two would reduce the risk of this so we would at least end up with one that we liked, but this is just ridiculous. Beyond.