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.