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 Hot Day

Helen, Mother

It was a beautiful hot summer’s day. The sun shining down, not a cloud in the sky. The kind of day that you see in the final heroic scene of a Hollywood film. The kind of day that lovers, children, and all that aspire for natural bliss desire. The perfect day to really enjoy the beautiful world and get some refreshing fresh air.

Naturally, we were staying inside.

There’s hot, and then there’s hot. And this day was just too hot. Leonie and I are both highly British and highly pastie. If there’s a chance to melt, we melt. If there’s a chance to burn, we burn.

And so we were sat inside our small flat, enjoying the sun coming through the window.

This is our way of doing things. Enjoying the sun from the shade.

However, looking through the window at all the people on the street, this didn’t feel like a very Danish thing to do. And the whole point of us being here was to try and embrace the Danish lifestyle.

I looked over at my daughter who had sat herself in the corner of the room by the kitchen. The furthest place away from the sun coming through the window. She was so far away she was wearing a jumper. Eyes down. No engagement was wanted.

She was quietly reading. I looked over at my own abandoned book that I had left on the coffee table.

‘Maybe,’ I started, and was able to catch her attention, ‘there’s somewhere outside where we could sit and read in the sun?’

She gave me a glare that had a hint of harshness in it that I hadn’t seen for a while. The ‘you must be joking’ stare.

I was initially taken aback by it, but to be honest, I was half thinking the same. It really did look very very hot. Was I really going to carry on suggesting this? I asked myself over and over again.

‘Perhaps, a park? Or… somewhere by the water? When I was in the centre yesterday, I went near Christianshavn, do you know Christianhavn?’ I was very proud that I knew Christianshavn, I was becoming a local, ‘there were people just hanging around the canal. They were jumping in and swimming, maybe we could join them?’

But I didn’t want to go and sit in the park, or somewhere by the canal. It looked ridiculously hot, and I certainly wouldn’t be jumping in or swimming anywhere. Floating and bloating in the direct sun. I felt like I was going to cook just thinking about it.

Leonie continued with the same look.

‘No,’ she said. It was clearly too hot for politeness. Clearly a situation that she wasn’t even willing to consider or discuss.

And to be quite honest with you, I didn’t blame her. There was a part of me that was relieved. I didn’t immediately push the idea. I let it sit and settle for a while.

But I couldn’t let it go. I had come so far trying to do everything in the way my Danish brethren would do. And they were outside. Maybe it was time for us to step outside too. Out of our comfort zone, out of the shade and into the sun. The merciless, unforgiving, scorching sun.

‘Everybody else is outside’, I pleaded, ‘Maybe we should-’

‘We can only see the people that are outside. Not everyone is outside. We are not outside.’ She seemed… angry. Angry with… me? Had I done something wrong? It might just have been the heat, neither of us did very well in the heat. That’s right. It had to be the heat. I didn’t want to argue back.

But I had to stick to my mantra.

If she wouldn’t follow me outside, then I would at least lead by example.

I was going to go outside. That was the Danish thing to do.

Oh god, I really didn’t want to go outside.

But I was going to go outside.

I stood up. ‘I’m going to enjoy the sun’. I wasn’t going to enjoy the sun. ‘I want to make the most of the nice day’. I was going to hate the nice day. ‘I’ll be back later’. I was going to be back as soon as physically possible.

She had grown tired of me and had already returned to her book. Now having raised the hood of her jumper so as to hide her face of disgust and disbelief at my actions. Was it my imagination or was she finding it difficult to look at me? I racked my brain to think if I had done something to upset her. I didn’t really know how to handle this Leonie. Angry Leonie.

I lasted outside for a total of 10 minutes before I ran into a Netto supermarket. There, I spent 45 minutes stood in the freezer section staring at the emptiness that had once been home to a variety of ice creams, wafting as much of the artificial icy air as I could onto my face. I picked up the last tub of their own brand vanilla, unnoticed at the bottom, and headed home.

I told of my exciting tale of the outside world, pretending that I had been on a much grander adventure, and encouraged Leonie to join me some time, to help enrich the Danishness in our souls. I quickly disappeared before she had the chance to take me up on the offer.

Not that she was listening to me anyway. There was something off with her today. The heat, it must have been the heat. It tends to do things, makes you angry, at no fault of others around you. That was it. The hot day was not for us.

Definitely not for me.

I would need to recover a while before I could go outside again.