How to Fall in Love with a Man Who Lives in a Bush by Emmy Abrahamson

Author:Emmy Abrahamson [Abrahamson, Emmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008222369
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

23

Ben and I are pretending to be Baryshnikov and Anna Pavlova on ice. Now the Christmas market has closed, there’s an enormous skating rink in front of the town hall. Great plastic snowflakes hang in the trees, and the town hall is lit up purple. Although it’s almost half nine in the evening, the rink is still full of people. Classical music plays from the speakers, which suits our made-up jumps, steps and pirouettes perfectly.

‘I think I have to rest a bit,’ I say when we stop in a dramatic pose. ‘Then we should play Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.’

Ben grins before pushing off with his left arm forwards and his right leg backwards. I try to skate to the ramp at the side without colliding with too many people. This evening is a bit different, because Ben has paid the entrance fee and skate hire. He’s got a job via the Poles in the third district. Before that was a failed attempt as a ticket seller for Mozart concerts – a job that most of the desperate, half-decent-looking guys in Vienna can get. All the Mozart costumes were too small for Ben, and he kept telling the tourists to go to the other Mozart concerts because they were better. After two weeks he’d only made twenty euros, because it was on commission. But now he’s got a job as a plasterer.

‘They’re a real bunch of bloodsuckers,’ Ben says. ‘An Austrian would have got twenty euros an hour for the work. I’ll get eighty cents a square metre. So even if I have to plaster a 100-square-metre house three times over, I’ll only get eighty euros. But it’s a job.’

‘I’m so proud of you,’ I say.

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Why not?’

‘If I was five and had made you a nice picture out of pasta shapes, you could say you were proud,’ Ben says. ‘This is a crappy job. But it will be great to finally be able to pay for food and so on.’

As I stand on the ramp, trying to wiggle life into my frozen toes, I spot Karen, who also works at Berlitz. Karen is so thin and pale that several times students have asked whether she was ill. One student even started bringing in sandwiches and oranges for her.

‘Hi Karen!’

Karen catches sight of me and comes over with a large bag in her hand.

‘Have you finished or are you about to start?’ I ask.

‘I’m off home now,’ she says. ‘Are you on your own?’

I shake my head and point at Ben, who’s stopped being a ballet dancer. Instead, he’s doing a robot dance in the middle of the ice with two children who are cracking up with laughter. For a long time, Karen and I just stand staring at him.

‘Hey, I actually wanted to ask you something,’ Karen says after a while. ‘Would you be interested in teaching an evening course at the university? It’s a beginner’s course I generally take care of, but I’m busy at the moment.’

‘The University of Vienna?’ I ask.

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