CAPTAIN COPENHAGEN

Captain Copenhagen tells the story of Helen and her daughter Leonie. After Leonie is diagnosed with depression at 14 years old, Helen decides that they need to move to the country that has been attributed as one of the happiest in the world, Denmark. Her hope is that she can use the country, culture and everything Danish to “cure” her daughter and make her happy again. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

This blog is a work of fiction. It includes comedic episodes from Helen’s perspective as she tries to navigate Danish life, and more subdued episodes from Leonie’s perspective as she tries to navigate her mother.

All episodes can be found at www.captaincopenhagen.co.uk.

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TRIGGER WARNING: Captain Copenhagen explores the topic of mental health.

The Club

Helen, Mother

Clubs. Clubs Clubs Clubs.

The life blood of Danish culture.

‘When two Danes meet they shake hands – and when three Danes meet they form an association’.

That’s right, I’m quoting. And when you quote it means you know what you’re talking about. Associations were the way to go, and association was just a fancy word for club. Which leads me to a new discovery about the Danes, they’re fancy.

But which club Helen? I hear you ask.

Art I graciously answer. For Leonie, that’s the obvious choice.

I had toyed with a book club, but the relationship between Leonie and her books seemed like a private monogamous married-for-life sort of relationship that shouldn’t be invaded.

Art, however, was her bit on the side that had already been publicly exposed in school lessons, the cheap coattails of this exploitation ripe for riding on.

After far too much internet asearching and agoogling I found it. It was clubby, it was arty, and it was hosted by the most wonderful and perfect Danish person I have ever encountered.

She cycled, she baked, she looked like she had hygge leaking out of her pores. She was perfectly married with perfect offspring and had an unbelievably perfect dental hygiene routine. She perfectly kept in touch with friends from school, worked as the most perfect illustrator and had adopted a perfect canine companion who seemed to have an equally perfect dental hygiene routine.

I may have stalked her a little.

She was Danish perfection and I wanted my daughter in her club. Her club that declared to me that it had ‘limited spaces available’, a fancy Danish way of saying piss off we’re full.

As if that was going to stop me. It didn’t stop me that time I needed to get a children’s party of eight into a five seater car and it wouldn’t stop me now.

So I did what any self respecting parent does when they want what’s best for their child. I nagged. And I pestered. And I begged. Careful to tread that fine line between persistence and harassment induced restraining order.

I emailed. I called. I glued myself to my computer and refreshed that webpage every hour of every day for the following month. When that space opened up I would be on it like a fly on s…sustainable Scandinavian energy.

Leonie was concerned, my neighbours were concerned, Mirva was…unconcerned, perplexed, and subsequently ignored.

No change, no one was budging. But I get it. If I was a member of this club with the perfect angel of Danishness I would set my anchor in cement and never leave too.

It was time to play my last option, my last pestering verb: I visited. If there was no space in the club for Leonie, I would make one.

Her name was Sofia and she was, well, I’ll go with surprised, when I turned up on her doorstep. I’m sorry my perfect club provider, but I had decided that no step was too extreme. If my new role in the ‘make Leonie happy plan’ was to set things up from behind the scenes I was going to go to every length to damn well set it up.

‘Listen’, I said, ‘I just want to try out the club, just once, and see if it’s right for my daughter. If it isn’t right then I will leave you alone forever.’ I lied.

‘Mmm…’ was the only reply I got. I suddenly wondered if there was a language issue. Maybe she didn’t speak English. Maybe that had been the problem. That’s fine, I would speak Danish.

‘Hør-’

‘No’ she interrupted. ‘Don’t do that’.

It seemed my Danish had not improved since the time I tried to say hello to that child in the park and could only watch as the tears sprang forth. And there are no sadder tears than Danish tears.

I would take another more silent and direct approach. A slightly bribe-ish, but if anyone asks not-bribe-ish, approach.

I reached into my bag and handed her the perfectly researched dental product, knowing that it would fit well into both her and her canine companion’s routine.

She seemed touched, slightly confused and slightly alarmed. The general reaction that most of my gifts get. However, I wasn’t sure if the bribe factor was really coming through.

I would try one last thing.

‘My daughter is sad,’ I said slowly, ‘art will help. Please.’

Her face softened.

Boom! I was elated. That day I learnt that there was nothing that couldn’t be nagged and harassed for if you were willing to really go for it.

And so leads me to today’s situation, sitting with a group of children under five trying to paint a mouse mask onto a paper plate.

I may have made a slight mistake in my translation. I understood that this was a children’s art group, but I didn’t think it meant children-children. These not-long-removed-from-the-teat-children. Leonie is still a child to me but this might have been pushing it a bit.

The name Happy Happy Sunshine group might have been a bit of a hint, but who doesn’t want the promise of happy happy sunshine bliss.

My girl needs happy happy sunshine opportunities too.

The Perfectly Danish Sofia’s face dropped when I arrived. She seemed as surprised as I was. I later found out that she thought it would be my child trying out the session and not her 50ish year old mother. 

However, she was too polite to tell me to leave, and I was too polite to leave on my own terms.

Plus…

I had pushed too hard to get here. The promise of a perfect club. I knew it was just my stubbornness creeping in, but I couldn’t just let it go. There could still be a way that this could work.

She simply smiled at me, her teeth perfect. “Regimed”.

And so I took my tiny seat, and we began.

I must admit, seeing that most of the children were creating a more successful looking rodent than me did not give me happy happy sunshine feelings. Well, except Elias. Elias was clearly just here as a participant.

I don’t have the artistic gene. My mother does, Leonie does. I am the unartistic filling in an otherwise artistic sandwich.

And Leonie’s slice of bread was the most talented part of that sandwich.

She really had a gift.

But…

But it didn’t take me long to realise that this was not a club for her.

Unless….

No, no, it was not for her. It didn’t matter how many smiley face stickers were on offer.

As the session eventually drew to a close, art completed, embarrassment resisted behind a wall of parental determination, I donned my mouse mask and, fully rodent-ed up, approached the great leader Sofia with the cheesiest optimism that I could.

‘That was very enjoyable, squeak!’ I greeted her, and was acknowledged with the politest of politest laughs. It seemed I was still not funny, and she was determined to see her politeness through to the end.

‘So…’ she began with the slightest but noticeable of hesitations, ‘do you think the club would be a good fit for your daughter?’

‘To be honest… my daughter is a little bit older…’

‘Oh, ok. Well, I could probably cater for a child up to 6, or even 7?’

‘She’s 15’.

‘Ah ok, maybe not then. Thanks for coming though.’ Turning away from me she started to pack away. So that put an end to that. Conversation ended. Trial ended.

‘It was nice to meet you,’ I said, and I bowed. I don’t know why I bowed. It just seemed appropriate. I was also still dressed as a mouse.

Time to head home with my tail between my legs. But only an imaginary tale, I hadn’t gotten as far as the other children.

‘Erm… before you go…’ she called. I stopped in my tracks. She beckoned me back over and you always answer the call of a beckoning Dane.

‘There is…’ she paused. She seemed to be deciding how much more she wanted to engage. ‘There is another art group for teenagers. I wonder… if that might be more appropriate for your daughter?’

What had she said? I was frozen in shock and excitement, blinking cartoon-like behind my mouse lashes. It was probably time to take the mask off. I hadn’t heard of this club at all, and I had been actively stalking her social media for a while.

‘It’s more of a casual thing, a bunch of friends meeting up,’ she continued,’ but if your daughter was interested, I could ask if they would be alright with her coming along?’

A secret Happy Happy Sunshine invitation to a secret Happy Happy Sunshine Club. A teenage club with Danish friends her own age! Appropriately aged friends well past the teat!

This was the perfect club I had been looking for.

I decided to trust my gut and go for it.  

….

A couple of days later I stood at the entrance, not quite sure what to make of the image before me.

There stood my daughter, ready to be collected after her first meet up. Covered in paint. Her hair disheveled. Her eyes telling me that she had seen things that she could not speak of. A far away look, wild and desperate.

I took a peak at the room from which she had emerged. Paint splattered over the walls, the floor. Canvases ripped and splattered with… I don’t know what. Glue? Newspaper cuttings? Leftover food? Existentialism? It certainly was a far cry from making mouse masks out of paper plates.

That was when I saw her heading up the path to the house. Sofia. She had been out. Not here. Blessing her Danish glory on others that were not my daughter. My Happy Happy Sunshine club leader.

I went to greet her.

‘Were you not running the club tonight?’ I asked perhaps a little too desperately.

‘Oh hello, no, this is all my daughter. She’s 16, close to Leonie’s age, so I thought they might hit it off’, and she smiled the way I wish she had been smiling at my daughter for the last couple of hours.

From behind Leonie emerged a figure. A foreboding figure. A girl, the age of 16, dressed in intense dark blacks and even intenser bright colours.

Her hair was bright blue, both her eyebrows were pierced, both sides of her bottom lip were pierced. A perfect triangle of metal pinpointed her face.

Now, I am a progressive parent. Leonie could come home one day with an anvil pierced through her leg if it made her happy, I wouldn’t care as I wasn’t the one who had to polish it. It was just the permanent frown that these particular accessories seemed to give this girl… I’ve never seen someone look so inwardly angry at the world.

No, it wasn’t the accessories, it was…

‘Leonie should come again’, the unknown daughter said, ‘she was a good addition to the group’.

Her eyes…

‘Ok… ‘I replied, ‘well, erm…’

‘Flo,’ she replied.

Her eyes looked familiar…

‘Flo, yes… ok….’

‘Like the sound that is made as the last ounce of hope drifts off into the sky,’ she continued. ‘And the term for an intense period. Both emotionally and menstrually, Why not try using it in a sentence?’ she continued to continue.

I just stood there and stared at that same familiar tired face, she looked just like…

‘Goodbyes are difficult, but you’ll manage.’

She started closing the door.

‘I’ll come again,’ Leonie blurted out before I could make any kind of judgment.

I abruptly pivoted my daughter 180 degrees and pushed her towards homeward. I needed to escape. We needed to escape.

And yet, I couldn’t help myself.

‘Could I just ask…’ I turned back and suddenly grabbed the door before Flo could close it, ‘you’re Danish?’

‘Yes’, she replied.

‘Definitely?’

‘Mmhmm’

‘100%?’ I asked.

‘Ja. Ja Ja Ja. 100%. Any further questions?’ she replied.

It just didn’t seem…

‘Are you…’ I couldn’t finish the last question.

Surely she was happy, she was Danish.

Right?