The Little Café in Copenhagen: Fall in love and escape the winter blues with this wonderfully heartwarming and feelgood novel

I shrugged as if far too professional to comment. If only she knew. I was ready to strangle him. He’d made sod all effort to join in, constantly tapping away on his phone like a recalcitrant teenager and yawning when he thought no one was looking. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help watching him, constantly trying to gauge his reactions, which so far hadn’t seemed that positive.

‘Good job I’m all loved up with James.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ I seized on the change of subject. I didn’t want to think about or discuss Ben, especially not regarding the subject of hotness.

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘He’s pretty lovely.’

‘How long have you been together?’

‘Nearly two years.’ She hugged herself and glanced at me. ‘I’m hoping he might pop the question soon.’

‘Are you living together?’ I asked.

‘Sort of, that’s the only difficulty. His mother is quite ill, so he works in London four days a week and then goes back to Cornwall on a Thursday to look after her. Honestly the care system is crap. You can’t get carers over the weekend. It makes things a bit trickier but I keep thinking that if I can freelance one day we could both move down there. I don’t want to live in London for ever. What about you? You with anyone?’

I was about to tell her about Josh but caught Ben giving me one of his usual glacial glares, in sharp contrast to the warm looks the first time I met him.

My lip curled. ‘No, I was. But I’m off men for the foreseeable future.’

The restaurant looked unassuming from the outside, almost like the front of someone’s home but inside had that stylish Danish design look that was quickly becoming apparent was part of the Danish psyche. Dark wood tables and chairs were arranged in neat order while the white painted walls were full of photos of famous patrons, cartoons and several of a very smiley Ida Davidsen, who was very much a real person.

Who knew that the humble sandwich could be such a work of art? The menu featured over 250 and we were urged to go and check out the rainbow display in the cabinet. It was so utterly mouth-watering, I wanted one of everything.

Piled on the dark rye bread were rows of thick juicy pink prawns, the deep amber of smoked salmon in rolls with black fish roe and wedges of sunshine yellow lemon sprinkled with dill, ripples of rare roast beef decorated with delicate shavings of pale cucumber and rolled herring encircled by quartered eggs, chopped chives and long slivers of spring onion.

Sophie was in seventh, eighth and ninth heaven. ‘I think I might have to stay here forever. How on earth do you choose?’

‘My stomach thinks it’s died and gone to heaven,’ said Conrad, pulling out a pair of glasses and studying the display.

‘I’m not even sure what half of this is?’ said Ben.

‘That’s slices of pork,’ said Sophie pointing. ‘That’s …’

She was very knowledgeable as you would expect from a food writer.

‘Gosh, they look pretty calorie heavy,’ said Avril, rubbing at her none-existent stomach. ‘I don’t want to go home the size of a house.’

Looking at her skeletal tiny frame, going home the size of a normal person would be quite a feat.

‘Can we order some extra?’ asked Sophie as everyone mused out loud about what they might choose when we sat down at our table, which had been reserved. The place was almost full, it was very popular. ‘Everyone needs to try something new.’

‘Hmm, I’m not sure that I fancy pickled herring, thank you very much,’ said Avril turning up her patrician nose as she read the menu.

‘Ah, but you must for your food education. What if you discovered you loved it?’ said Sophie waving her hands towards the displays.

Avril winced and went back to her menu.

‘There are some amazing ideas here. I think I can do a whole recipe feature on open sandwiches for the magazine.’

‘That would be good,’ I said, my brain clicking into action. ‘Maybe you could do a cookery demonstration, a reader event for the magazine at the store.’

‘Won’t it have a café or restaurant?’

‘No, apparently that’s a very English thing.’

‘Shame, but I’m sure we could definitely do a cookery demo,’ said Sophie, bubbling with immediate enthusiasm. ‘My editor would love that. We’re always looking for subscriber events. I could talk about the types of bread. Rye bread. The toppings, traditional and modern twists. Pickled herring and somersalat, smoked cheese and radish, corned beef and Danish pickles.’

‘Sounds great. And we could tweet about it. Take lots of pictures and run them on Instagram.’

‘And Facebook,’ Sophie chipped in.

I whipped out my notebook.

‘God, do you ever switch off?’ asked Ben from across the table. For most of the morning he’d had little to say and seemed far more interested in his phone. As soon as we’d sat down he’d asked the waitress for the WiFi code.

‘It’s my job,’ I said pointedly. Since we’d arrived he’d barely joined in, focussing on his own emails.

‘Some job,’ he muttered, going back to his phone again.

The group dynamic splintered into two main conversations, Sophie, David and I chatting with Mads, while Conrad and Avril had discovered a rich vein of gossip about an editor they both knew on a celebrity gossip magazine. Fiona scuttled around the table when we’d arrived, selecting the furthermost chair, tucked back in the shadows as if hoping to fade into them. She sat fiddling with her camera and I wasn’t sure how to involve her without blatantly pointing out her isolation.

Ben seemed equally reticent but at that moment, looked up and caught me surreptitiously studying him.

He straightened and leaned across the table and spoke to Fiona.

‘Any good shots?’

Her head lifted with her usual startled fawn look of alarm and she froze for a second.

But the others were busy talking, so she handed her camera over to Ben. Head bent he pored over the images, holding the camera between careful fingers, nodding every now and then.

‘These are great, Fiona,’ he said quietly about to hand the camera back but unfortunately Avril heard him.

‘Oooh let’s have a look.’

I saw the pained expression on Fiona’s face and the apologetic one on Ben’s as everyone crowded around behind his chair for a closer look.

‘Wow, these are really quite good,’ said Avril. ‘Great shot of the Little Mermaid. I love that picture of the palace in the foreground and the sea in the background. I took one and posted it on Twitter but it’s nowhere near as good as that one.’

Ben scrolled through them. ‘I’m not sure about that one,’ he teased pausing at a blurry shot of David and Conrad in front of one of the soldiers outside the palace.

‘For the love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, please delete that shocker. I look like a geriatric drag queen after a nine-day bender,’ drawled Conrad with dramatic weariness. Instead of ducking her head and blushing, Fiona let out a small giggle.

‘I’ll delete that one for you.’

‘I should bloody well hope so,’ said Conrad. ‘Any chance of a glass of wine with lunch? I’ve built up a rare thirst.’

Ben passed the camera down to Sophie and I who were on the opposite side of the table and we flipped through the digital shots. Fiona was a very talented photographer. She’d captured a few of the group and I was struck by the pictures of Avril. No wonder she thought they were so good; she looked like some Hollywood starlet, although clearly conscious of the camera as there was a posed quality to a lot of the shots. There was one exception. It had been taken while we were at the Little Mermaid statue and Avril was gazing out beyond the statue to sea, lost in thought. Fiona had captured Avril bathed in a sunbeam, totally unaware of being photographed, her beautiful face filled with haunting sadness and her hunched shoulders bowed as if they carried the weight of the world. It was so different to the face she normally let the world see, it made me wonder what was on her mind.