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Cape Town, 1982

Nobody had liked her uncle’s wife. 

Not her kind-hearted granny – who for reasons unknown, didn’t trust her. Nor her sanctimonious aunts and their drunken husbands – who she suspected were jealous of the pretty woman, nor her stern, bible-reading grandfather – who often commented on the woman’s lack of church attendance. When her uncle had married his beloved, a few years before she was born, half the family had refused to attend the festivities. Her grandmother had gone out of respect and concern for what people might say, her grandfather, out of duty, his argument being, “I won’t miss the wedding of my only son.” And her only aunt who attended had gone to spy and come back with plenty of gossip. 

Over the years, her uncle’s wife didn’t gain anyone’s favour. Not when she gave birth to two sons and a healthy daughter, not when she knitted the perfect winter jerseys for her family, not when her house was always in perfect, tidy order to receive visitors.  Though it was obvious that her uncle was happily married, it was as though his wife’s Stepford perfection made everyone dislike her even more. 

“She’s not right, that woman,” people in the family would say, “there’s something not right with her.” 

Personally, she had never minded her uncle’s wife. On the rare occasions she’d see her, the woman would smile at her and offer a kindly remark. Once when she’d stayed at her uncle’s for a weekend, she had baked biscuits with her cousin Loretta, and danced in the kitchen with Loretta’s brothers to radio music she’d never heard before. She was having so much fun that she’d hoped the weekend would last forever. Only one thing about it bothered her. Even now. She had woken up in the middle of the night on the Saturday, desperately thirsty, and was making her way to the kitchen when she’d heard her uncle whispering to his wife.

“You can’t tell her…my parents would never speak to you again if you did.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, they barely speak to me now. So, what difference would it make? It’s just not fair, she has the right to know. She’s—”

“Don’t do it. I’m telling you!”

At that point, they became aware of her presence, and her uncle had looked hard at her.

“What did you…erm…why are you up?”

“I’m thirsty uncle,” she’d said.

His wife had turned around, poured some water from a jug, and handed it to her, and she noticed that her uncle’s wife had been crying. She wanted to ask her if she was alright, but the look on her uncle’s face was a wordless warning to say nothing and to return to bed as soon as possible.

When she arrived home on the Sunday afternoon and told her grandparents what had happened, her grandparents looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. For a few seconds nobody moved or spoke before her grandfather tossed his newspaper on the kitchen table and walked away. Her grandmother walked over to her and asked her to repeat the story very slowly before letting out a long sigh and telling her to go and finish her homework for Monday. 

That was the first time she understood that in their family, people survived on general obliviousness. Either they didn’t wish to know anything about anything, or they pretended not to know. Take her other cousin Solomon for example. Everybody had been aware, or at least had a slight inkling, of his and his big-breasted girlfriend’s toe-curling, tongue-swirling activities performed behind their outhouse in the back yard. Yet, as soon as his girlfriend’s tummy started swelling up like a rather large watermelon, everybody had genuinely acted surprised. News of the pregnancy had reached them via her aunty, of course. She’d walked into the house with a certain look on her face.  A sway of her hips, a tilt of the eyebrow. That look of power. The one that says, “I know something that you don’t.” She had casually informed her mother, that her grandmother status was to be upgraded to that of a great-grandmother. When her grandmother sat at the kitchen table shaking her head in disappointment, her aunty had simply boiled some water for tea and said,

“Relax Ma, his parents will have to deal with the burden.” 

Then, with a sucking of her teeth, she pointed a red-nailed finger at her niece.

 “Use your head girl and have some respect! Solomon had no respect. Imagine getting up to such shameful behaviour, behind your own toilet no less.” 

Her aunty left the kitchen humming to herself leaving her and her grandmother alone at the kitchen table to finish their tea.

“What’s going to happen now, Granny?”

“Now it’s all going to unravel kindtjie. Like a badly knitted scarf. And you, let this be a warning. Keep those legs closed.”

Her grandmother had been right of course, as is seemingly always the case. Shortly after the news broke, and thankfully, before his girlfriend’s water broke, her cousin had quit school and started working on large fishing boats in Cape Town harbour. His parents had refused to offer any help, as his dad stated, 

“If you are going to do grown-up things you better start working to be able to afford it.”  

Grown-up things, childhood things. It didn’t differ much to her, apart from the fact that the grown-ups very often acted like children, and the children like prematurely aged and wizened creatures from a different planet.

It was too early to get up yet, though the February heat made it hard to stay in bed. Next to her, her grandmother’s breathing came out in jerks and snorts. She used to sleep in the other room with her aunty, but ever since her grandfather had died, she had shared her grandmother’s bed with her.

The first night, two days after his burial, she’d opened the bed to find her grandfather’s pyjamas still folded under the pillow on his side of the bed. The shirt resting atop the trousers, a neat reminder of the man himself. The sight of it had made her sad, and when her grandmother found her crying, she’d held her, and told her that she could sleep in her grandfather’s shirt, if she wanted. That night she had fallen asleep with the smell of shoe polish, hair cream and aftershave on her skin. And she’d held onto the shirt for weeks. Until her grandmother had confiscated it to be washed, after which, much to her disappointment, only faint remnants of her grandfather’s scent were left behind. Aftershave had been the only luxury her grandfather had ever allowed himself. He didn’t drink and referred to alcohol as ‘the devil’s piss,’ didn’t smoke, and called cigarettes ‘cancer sticks’ and never overindulged in food, calling gluttony in any shape or form, an ‘enormous sin’. When she was little, and she started living with her grandparents, he’d refer to her as his ‘bush baby’. And when she asked her grandmother what a bush baby was, her grandmother had said, “a sweet, furry little animal, with very large eyes, like yours.” 

Before she started school in the mornings, her grandfather would make her read out loud, standing in front of him, as he sat at the kitchen table. These readings were always from one of his collection of twelve encyclopaedias he had bought years ago, when he started working at a book binding factory in Cape Town. Whenever she mispronounced a word, he would indicate for her to repeat it by hitting his cane on the floor once. If she made the mistake twice, he would make her start from the very beginning of the paragraph, and if she was unfortunate enough to repeat the error three times, he would not only make her start from the beginning but instruct her to write the word or words out 1000 times. If she was good, he would give her some of her favourite Wilson sweets, or if he thought her pronunciation was exceptional, give her some money for tamaletjies. If she hugged him too long, he would pull free, chuckle and say, “Enough now bush baby, go to school and enjoy your breaks today. I need to rest.”

“She walks with a tokoloshe, that’s why we don’t trust her. She’s filthy.” 

That’s what her aunty would say when discussing her Uncle Seth’s wife. Calling someone filthy was a way of saying they interacted with bad spirits or harm-spreading demons.  

She didn’t believe it and told her aunt as much.

“Believe it. Nobody is that perfect, she is in conversation with the evil one, I am telling you. I have seen things that would make your hair stand on end, child!”

Her aunty was the only one of her grandparent’s daughters who still lived at home with them. Her mother had also once been one of her grandparent’s daughters, but she had died a long time ago, only a few months after her birth. By the time she’d turned six, she’d lived in three different households. First with her Aunty Rachel, who as a passionate follower of the spare the rod, spoil the child philosophy had managed to turn her four children into silent soldiers. Her tenure there came to an end when she witnessed her eight-year-old cousin crying because his mother had given him a thrashing for not cleaning the dishes properly. Next, her middle aunty, Sara claimed her. Aunty Sara, whose husband would come home drunk and drag her to bed after pinching her bottom and grabbing her breasts in front of the kids. Her tenancy there, which lasted just over a year, ended when her aunty’s family moved to a new township. Thirdly, she was moved in with her Aunty Maria. Aunty Maria was a neurotic cleaner, always walking around with a broom in one hand and a feather duster in the other, while muttering something about cleanliness and godliness. The former caused obsessive compulsions in her children, while the latter drove her husband into the arms of prostitutes and off to another city. She had a bible quotation for every wrong committed and gave her three kids chores upon chores. After she got spanked with a wet tea towel for presumably wetting the bed (though aunty Maria’s youngest was the culprit) it was decided that she’d live with her grandparents. 

Sara, Maria, Rachel, Bathsheba, and Seth. Her mother had been named Michelle. She didn’t like the name, mostly because she thought her mother didn’t look like a Michelle –whatever that meant. One day, she had asked her grandmother why she had given her mother that name.

“It was your grandfather. You see when I was expecting your mother, your grandfather was convinced that it would be a son. So, he’d already decided on the name Michael. Michael is the name of one of God’s archangels. But when your mother came, he decided if he could not have his Michael, he would have a Michelle.”

Her grandmother had shown her a small, sepia photograph of her mother at the age of sixteen, and she’d whispered, 

“Your mother was my prettiest daughter.”

Her Aunty Bathsheba didn’t agree and was always reminding her that her mother had brought shame on her grandparents’ home. 

“She never told us who your father was. I wonder if she even knew. For all we know, it could be the devil himself.”

She never responded to anything her aunty said about her mother. In the beginning, out of shame and fear, and much later, out of reason. What could she say? What was there to say about a woman she never knew?

By the time Bathsheba turned thirty, it was widely accepted that she would never marry, and end up an old maid. The fact that she was considered the least attractive of the daughters, with a minor learning disability, and was watched like a hawk by her grandparents made her aunty all the less desirable. “Simple Sheba with the bricklayer’s arms” the men would taunt her. For the most part, her aunty wasn’t too bothered until her path crossed with that of Stanley Dhlamini.  Stanley and his two brothers were regarded as roguish and handsome by most women in their sorry excuse of a neighbourhood. They ran a smokkelhuis two streets from her grandparents’ home, which they predictably named the Three Brothers. According to the elderly lady living next door, all sorts of “disgraceful” things happened on that “yard”. Sheba clearly didn’t care or mind about the contaminated reputation of the object of her desire, and she would pass by the yard several times a day hoping to get noticed by Stan. While her aunty was desperately trying to capture his attention, she avoided that street like the plague, especially after one of the girls in her class told her that her older sister had gotten pregnant by Stan’s older brother. The girl also told her that taxi queens frequented the premises, and that the middle brother, known as “Dirty Dick”, had a thing for teenage girls.

Next to her, her grandmother was still snoring away, and she remembered the surprised look on the girl’s face when she’d asked her what a taxi queen was. She finally got up when her bladder indicated a desperate need to be relieved, and tiptoeing from the room, she opened the backdoor and sprinted to the outhouse. She sat down with a grateful sigh. Closing her eyes, with a feeling of satisfaction washing over her, she was disturbed by her aunty banging on the door. 

“Be quick! I need to number two!”

Opening the door, her aunt’s broad frame loomed over her. Her face looked puffy, and she pushed passed her, sitting herself down on the toilet without saying good morning. The door had barely closed behind her when she heard the strong stream of her aunty’s urine flowing into the toilet. She stood still for a moment looking around her. Nothing grew in the dusty backyard, and the brightness of the sun only sought to highlight the barrenness of everything. Still, it was a nice day, a great one for a wedding. If that was where they were going – but they weren’t. Not today. Moments later, she heard the flush of the toilet and her aunty reappeared looking slightly more friendly. Before her aunty could tell her, she turned on the kettle and got a pot from the cupboard to boil their porridge. Their breakfast was almost ready when her grandmother walked into the kitchen, her “swirlkous” drooping to one side. Re-adjusting it with one hand, she used the other to stifle a big yawn.

“What time is it, Sheba?”

“Six-thirty Ma,” her aunt answered as she scooped the thick, white porridge into three bowls.

“Well, we better eat and get a move on, otherwise we’ll be late.” She turned to her granddaughter. “Are your shoes polished and your dress ironed, kindtjie?” she asked with a smile.

“Yes, Granny.”

They ate in silence. She wasn’t very hungry but ate because it was better than having to listen to one of her aunty’s long-winded sermons about ungrateful children and waste. By the time she brought the last spoonful to her mouth, her tummy felt knotted. She washed her bowl and added water to a plastic bucket to get washed herself. They had several buckets in the house. A blue one for washing, a yellow one her granny kept in the bedroom in case she needed to pee at night, (her aunty’s was red) and another one, known as the water bucket, reserved for cooking and tea. The communal tap was shared with two other families, their neighbours on either side, and often there would be a short queue. 

  Looking at herself in her grandmother’s old mirror, she pulled a face. The dress was too large around the chest and hip areas. It looked like a black, rubbish bag on her frame. The shoes she liked. Her grandmother had bought them for her from a store called “Poor man’s Friend,” a few months back. They had a little heel, and a delicate, silver bow on top. After brushing her hair and tying it back neatly, she went to sit down at the kitchen table waiting for her grandmother and aunty to get ready. Shortly after, they locked the door and set off to the train station. Her grandmother carried her old handbag with their hymnals and some mints inside, while her aunty carried keys, lipstick and a bottle of cheap perfume in hers. She carried nothing, and simply walked quietly behind her grandmother, watching her shoes get dusty with the orange gravel the pavements were covered in.  The heat was increasing by the second, and she irritably tugged at the long sleeves of her dress. They had to walk across a big, dry field to reach the train station, and before they could reach the field, they had to carefully navigate their way through a grassless, mini desert of at least two kilometres. This was a Sahara of horrible grey sand, which she’d privately christened ‘the path of filth’. All three of them moved gingerly, as though having trouble with their legs, their aim of keeping their shoes as clean as possible proving to be an insurmountable task. What was the point? she wondered for the umpteenth time. What was the point of polishing shoes when living in a place forever determined to bury you beneath dunes of sand? By the time they reached the grassy savanna of the field, her grandmother was muttering under her breath, her aunty’s make-up was melting, and all three were covered in dust. She accepted a tissue from her grandmother and bent down to first wipe her grandmother’s shoes and then her own, while her aunty reapplied her lipstick.

A few weeks back, when her aunty had been out, presumably strutting down a certain street hoping to catch a certain someone’s eye, she had tested the lipstick on herself. When her grandmother suddenly appeared behind her, she waited for the admonishment she thought was coming, but her granny had only looked at her with a broken smile.

“You look just like her…your mother. Although I am hoping that you…”  

The sentence was left hanging, and her grandmother diverted her eyes, not looking at her. Pulling one of her many floral handkerchiefs from her apron pocket, she walked over to her, grabbed her chin, and with an almost violent wipe, smeared the colour across her jaw. 

“Clean your face, kindtjie. Cleanse yourself.”

“Granny—”

“Wipe it off. You don’t know. You don’t see…”

She took the handkerchief from her grandmother’s hand and looked at her, not sure what to do.

Before walking out of the room, her grandmother turned to look at her again, her eyes shiny, the type of shiny that spoke of unshed tears and defeats she didn’t understand. 

“Please don’t grow up too fast.”

The words had left her feeling confused. She wanted to grow up. She wanted to visit places and go to all the libraries in the world, she wanted to dance to radio music like her cousin Loretta, she wanted to smoke cigarettes like the glamorous women on the old magazine covers at home, she wanted to work and earn money, wanted to go to fancy restaurants …perhaps one day. Sometimes, when her aunty was nice to her, she would page through the old magazines showing her things and saying, “If only we could have lives like these people.” After her grandfather died, nobody bought newspapers anymore. Her grandmother had said that what is called ‘the news’ in South Africa depended on who wrote it, and that it depressed her, while her aunty stated that it angered her. She wasn’t surprised by that. Often in the past she would wonder why her grandfather would read the newspaper when all it seemed to do was put him in a beastly mood. Once or twice, he would even curse. 

“This fucking country! Look at this! More students arrested!”

He would fume at her grandmother, who would put her hands on his shoulders and tell him to calm down. After she brought her report card home at the end of year eight, and proudly showed her grandfather her row of six As, he had hugged her so tightly she could barely breathe, and when she pulled back eventually, he had tears in his eyes. It was the first time she had ever seen a man cry. He had handed her a few coins and told her to go and get herself a treat from the corner shop and a newspaper for himself. Throughout their evening meal of soup and bread she had caught his eyes on her with a look of apprehension on his face.  

“He’s afraid for you, that’s all. He is scared that your brilliance will be crushed in this country, and that you will be robbed of opportunity just because we are what we are.” 

Over the years she would hear those words many times, and whenever she set to do something, whether it was writing an exam or weave fantasies about an unknown future those words would burn like a curse.  She would be fifteen soon, she thought, as they neared the station. Her body left her puzzled. How was it possible to have such skinny legs, and such tiny breasts with such funny big feet? It didn’t fit. The rest of the girls in her class all seemed well-proportioned and shapely in all the right places, she, on the other hand, was built like a boy. It’s not that she thought she was ugly, in fact she knew she wasn’t, even her aunty would admit to her being pretty, but it was just that all her pieces didn’t seem to fit together. She thought she was an awkward mishmash. Lately, she had started thinking of herself as a cross between a boy, a girl, and a horse.

The train was moving at a snail’s pace and was too full. Since there were no available seats, they stood between the two rows of occupied seats. A man opposite her was reading a newspaper, and for a moment, she almost imagined that he was her grandfather, sitting at the kitchen table, his face hidden from view. On the front cover, was a huge black and white photograph of a white woman seated on a single bed, in a drab looking room. To her chest, she held a framed photograph of a dismal young man. The woman appeared to almost blend in with the bleak surroundings of the background. Her light hair, blonde or grey, almost covering the entire left side of her face. Between dark slender fingers holding the paper she read the headline: Conscription Killed my Boy.

It was Saturday, so the packed train didn’t surprise her, and on top of that it had been the end of January two days before. The longest, driest, hottest, most painfully, financially exhausting month for most people, after the novelty of Christmas wore off.  Not that Christmas was ever a novelty in their house. It felt like a normal Sunday, except they would have more meat on the table than usual. For years, she had begged for a plastic Christmas tree, but was told each time that they couldn’t afford it. After being told the same thing again three Christmases ago, she had stopped asking. The one thing her grandmother did make more effort than usual with was the food. She would save money throughout the year for the best meats, vegetables, snacks, and would even make desert. She would travel into the Cape Town centre to visit the best butchers and would start cooking very early in the morning on Christmas day.  After church, they would put the finishing touches on the meal and her grandmother would lay the kitchen table using what she called her ‘special plates’.  Her grandfather’s last Christmas with them had been two years ago, and she remembered that he kept falling asleep during the meal as her grandmother had fed him. She remembers the difficulty he’d had breathing and how he had made her grandmother shave him that morning for his last mass. He died six days later, on New Year’s Eve. Two hours before the start of a new year with new possibilities, new challenges, new tears, and new laughter for the living.

“They should just go ahead and change it to Janu-worry, because God knows, it’s a rubbish month,” she’d heard some women joke at the taxi rank a few days before. One of the women had laughed even harder when she saw that their joke had been overheard and caught the attention of the accidental eavesdropper. They didn’t know that the eavesdropper had cried later that day, as she remembered her grandfather’s funeral that same month. And now they were off to the funeral of another – an unlikely friend to join her grandfather in whatever place he was. When the train came to a jerking halt at their destination, she lost her footing and hit a man who had just boarded the train, face first in the chest. She mumbled an apology and was relieved to get off, wiping her sweaty face with her palms.

By the time they arrived at the church, the coffin had already been brought in, carried by family members, and placed in front of the altar, as was custom. A large bouquet of proteas and a photo of her uncle’s wife rested on it. The woman’s large black eyes seemed to look right at her, and she suddenly remembered the last time she had seen her, seen those eyes. It was at her grandfather’s funeral. The woman had stared at her throughout the ceremony with a look on her face she could not fathom. The first three rows were as usual reserved for family, and she, her grandmother, and aunt managed to squeeze in next to Solomon, his girlfriend and their sixteen-month-old who was drooling and chewing his way through his mother’s shoulder pads. Her uncle and his children were seated in the very first row, heads bowed low, except for Loretta who was staring at the coffin with unblinking eyes. She studied her cousin’s well-chiselled profile, which at that moment reminded her of a bust of Nefertiti she’d seen in her grandfather’s encyclopaedias. A tear crawled over a sharp cheekbone, and she looked away hurriedly, afraid that Loretta might feel her eyes on her.

The sound of the organ brought her to her senses, and she got to her feet automatically, looking at the words in her hymnal without singing them. Next to her, her aunty’s familiar alto dragged the words out and became part of the sea of drawn-out voices around her. After the singing died down, the evangelist took to the pulpit, talking about God’s love for man, the mercy of death, and being free of pain and suffering. This was followed by a brief eulogy on the deceased, at which point, her uncle’s body started shaking so violently, she felt her throat tightening.  She felt the burn of that all-familiar lump increasing and was ready to catch the first tears in open palms when they came.

Years later, when thinking back to that day, she would remember all the parts separately. Flashing, switching, blurry, going back and forth. Images on a faulty projector. At her uncle’s house there was food, dishes whose aromas and colours she would remember but not recall tasting. She would remember her cousin Loretta crying and being consoled by a friend, a friend she had felt jealous of because she wanted to be the one comforting her cousin. People. Whispers. The house was, as always, neat and spotless, but that day it reeked of death. Her uncle’s face looked drawn, the complexion ashen, and when their eyes met, the stark bare pain reflected in them made her heart pound so hard she struggled to catch her breath. She wanted to run away yet was rooted to her seat.

Aunty Sheba was eating with the desperation of someone who’d gone hungry for days, and she felt ill just looking at her. Her grandmother had disappeared, and even strangers seemed to have their eyes on her. An overwhelming panic took hold of her, and she eventually got to her feet and exited the room into the kitchen. It was when standing in front of the sink, watching water pour form the rusty tap that she remembered the conversation between her uncle and his wife years before. She watched the water come out brown, then slight cloudy, until finally clear. Turning around slowly, she wasn’t surprised when she found her uncle standing behind her.

“You remember, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she answered, licking her lips, a trembling fear touching her spine.

“When you get home, ask your grandmother about your father. My darling wife was right. It’s time they told you the whole story. You need to know the truth.”

She’d agreed without knowing what she was agreeing to. She would remember that year of 1982 as being the worst of her life. A year that revealed truths she wasn’t yet ready for but was eager to hear. A year in which life decided to teach her, in the cruellest way, that just because we are granted only one chance, we are not spared, nor pardoned when life decides to slay.

Glossary:

Kindtjie – An endearing term meaning little one, or sweet child.

Smokkelhuis – Literally, “Smuggle House”, usually specializing in the selling of alcohol.

Swirlkous – A part of a pair tights or stocking used to wrap on head, to keep hair straight overnight.

Tokoloshe/Tikoloshe – A dwarf-like spirit, considered mischievous or evil. Popular in South African folklore.

Tameletjie – A homemade sweet or toffee, native to South Africa.

M. L Hufkie was born in Cape Town in 1984. Her birth, during the last desperate years of South Africa’s Apartheid policy and subsequent childhood in a country on the brink of change and plagued by political unrest has left a profound impact on her. With a minority voice in the UK, and the world at large her aim is to challenge dominant narratives from a minority perspective. She’s currently in year one of an MFA at Birkbeck working on a novel entitled Voices from the South. Reading and Writing are her passions.

“Nice garden, Charlie.”

He’s sitting on the bench, nestled amid magnificent summer borders, secluded and peaceful, strategically placed for reflection. 

It was barely dawn, the smell of Turkish tobacco wafting through my window had broken a fitful sleep, transporting me back, up the A23, from East Sussex to the smoke. Soho to be precise.

      “Pucker gaff, Charlie, how’d you swing that? Something shonky, I’ll be bound.”

      “It’s not mine, Dom, I’m only the lodger, I tend the gardens in lieu of rent.”

A sly smile tightens the skin of his pugilist’s face. “Not the master of the house? I find that hard to believe.”

“What do you want, Dom?”

A robin settles on the bench and gives a single chirp before bursting into glorious morning song. “What a strange thing,” he says as it returns skittishly to the wing, “so beautiful… that stunning colour.” 

He is not famous for romantic notions.

   “From the fires of hell,” I inform him. “Or perhaps the blood of Christ?” His uncertain gaze returns to scrutinise me, as if he has missed some vital point.

   “Time to come back, Charlie. Toby says there’s still a case to answer. I must say, you were not easy to find, anybody might think you had something to hide.” The catchlights in his eyes burn with accusation.

     “It was all settled a long time ago, Dom. There’s nothing more to add, I’m not coming back.”

     “Settled?” he says, “How so?”

     “Come, come, you must recall. I shot you dead. Buried you under the devil’s nose, the Crocosmia Lucifer. And over there, dahlias for Toby, so much more substantial than daisies, but far less funereal than lilies, don’t you think?”

Stephen J. Vowles graduated from Bournemouth University with an MA in Writing for the Media in 2011.

Lottie opens the door, her eyes sleepy. She’s smoked a joint already. Maybe they all have, maybe several. The conversation will be warm and slow, and my voice will sound too loud, exaggerated, my mouth taking up my whole face. My lips twitch as I smile. 

I’m late, I say.

Lottie looks beautiful, exceptionally so, her hair pulled up into a bun, barely any makeup, a green silk playsuit I haven’t seen before. I wonder fleetingly whether I have ever been sexually attracted to her. It’s not a real thought. She’d laugh if I told her, she’d like it. She hugs me into a cloud of pomegranate noir, our shared scent.

You look nice, she says into my hair and then steps back smiling lazily. No, not sexual attraction, it’s stronger than that, deeper: I want to absorb her, a second pulse beating below mine.

Thanks, so do you! I say. 

  Oh, do you like it? She spins around to show me her bare shoulder blades. It’s new.

I wait for her to ask me how it went, but she doesn’t, and there’s a moment of silence where we both stand hovering, not even properly looking at each other, me on the doorstep, her inside. What if I just turned around and left, would she shout my name down the street? I suck in my cheeks, hold out the bottle of Isla Negra and a small leafy plant that I found on sale in the corner shop. She beckons me in. 

The room is full of lamps borrowed from other rooms, and the table has been pulled in front of the French doors, which have been flung open despite the cold. The patio’s illuminated by the spill of bulbs. London’s bleached night, a kind of acid sheen. Josh is standing leaning against one of the doors, smoking. He’s growing a beard that makes his face look slimmer, older, and his hair is loose down to his shoulders.  

Look who’s here! Lottie announces to the room while I stand behind her clutching my bag to my chest.

There’s only one face I don’t recognise: a girl, very pretty, very thin. We smile at each other in the way that girls do when they’re sizing each other up. Josh comes over to hug me, cigarette stuck at the corner of his mouth. 

Wow, Lots, it looks amazing, I say, stepping back and away from him to the side of the room, searching for something to hold on to. I love this. I run my hand along the bookshelf which is completely empty, white as bone. 

Lottie puts the plant on one of the shelves in the centre. Next time everyone has to bring a book, she says. 

Or a china dog, Anissa says. It’s from Oka. Stupidly expensive. She approaches me and we kiss on both cheeks. I haven’t seen you for ages.

I know, I know, too long.

Have you lost weight?

I don’t think so, I say, laughing, pressing my palms against my cheeks. 

You look like you’ve lost weight, she insists.

I smile past her and locate a seat at the corner of the table by the doors. Milo acknowledges me with his eyes, but he’s mid anecdote and can’t interrupt the flow. I sit quietly, feeling my own presence as an intrusion. On the plate in front of me are the remains of the starter: the milky streak of burrata, rocket leaves, a crust of sourdough bread. 

No, don’t move, Josh says, seeing me at his place. 

Next to Lottie. Head of the table. There will have been a seating plan, which I’ve disrupted. I dip my hand into a bowl of herbed cashews and fill my mouth. Anissa sits next to me, lays a hand in Nick’s lap and starts telling me about her promotion. I already know the details from Lottie, and they tell me in almost exactly the same way, word for word.

It would mean moving to Madrid, Anissa says. Thankfully, Nick’s keen.

Madrid’s the new Berlin, the girl says loudly. We haven’t met. I’m Natalie. I work with Lottie.

Lottie’s spoken about her, but I didn’t realise they were friends, or that she was so thin. Too thin, shoulders sharp and curved forward, cheeks hollow. If she were taller, she could be a model. People probably tell her that all the time.

Nice to meet you, I say.

Have some wine. Anissa pours me a large glass of red from a bottle which looks expensive and Anissa confirms it is. Nick bought it; he’s a snob, won’t drink anything under ten pounds. You know he’s working on a poetry collection now?

I let Natalie and Anissa talk, angling myself away, towards the centre of the table. I don’t want to get stuck in this corner all night. 

She’s an influencer, Josh is saying to Milo. Lottie’s gone from her seat.

Writing is one thing, letting people read the words is another, says Nick. 

   She gets sent all this free stuff to wear and all she has to do is pretend that she likes it. 

    Those big corporations, Milo says, they’re fucking parasital.

It’s a con, yeah, but who cares? It’s good for her, good for them. Win, win.

That’s so brave, Natalie says. I can barely compose an email let alone a poem.

And we’re talking legit brands, Adidas, Sony, Apple, you name it, she’s done it.

Who are you talking about? Anissa says and the other conversation is dropped just like that.

Josh says a name that I don’t recognise.

How many followers? Natalie asks. Can we see? You guys must have heard of Miquela. Look it up. That’s the next level. The future. No need for real people. 

Don’t we know someone called Miquela? I ask. 

Natalie laughs. This Miquela is a cyborg. A CGI. Virtual being, created by a marketing company in the US. 

Josh is passing his phone round the table. 

So this person isn’t real? I say, examining a selfie of a pouting teenager with luscious, dark brown hair and huge blue eyes, rimmed with long eyelashes and plump, smooth skin. Her expression is seductive, but blank.

Natalie leans over me. That’s not Miquela.

That’s my cousin. She’s 18, says Josh. She was at the gig last week.

I wouldn’t have recognised her, I say.

Filters, says Milo. 

So young, Anissa says, wistfully.

So sexy! Natalie says. I’d love to photograph her. Can I photograph her?

You take photos? Nick asks and she nods. She’s on the side of analogue. Bring back the physical. It’s the texture she likes, the process, it feels more truthful. She’s trying to develop a new series around contemporary culture and young people, she likes the idea of framing it all in London gardens, maybe at night. Nature and the urban coming together. There’s something interesting about the generation just below us growing up in a virtual world and yet they’re the ones thinking about the environment and actually doing something, no?

I’m obsessed with women, she says. I never photograph men. Art’s been dominated by men for too long, and it’s women who are really driving culture these days. So inspiring!

I drink a lot of wine very quickly while Natalie tells us about protesting for women’s rights: abortion, equal pay, domestic abuse, rape… She counts them on her fingers. I stand up, chair scraping on polished wood. On another day, Lottie would scowl at me and I’d feel obliged to bend down and pretend to rub away the scratches with my finger. 

Where are you going? Anissa says.

   The loo.

   Go upstairs. The downstairs bathroom is being retiled.

I nod, light headed when I stand. No lunch. I wonder when the main course is coming. 

Upstairs, I lock the bathroom door, take the Jo Malone from the cabinet above the sink and spray it onto my wrists and neck. In the mirror I comb my fingers through my hair, drop my head up and down, and brush it back behind my ears. I feel the scent settling into my skin. There’s a knock on the door.

Rosie? She tries the handle. Why did you lock it? Come on, I’m bursting!

I open it and Lottie brushes past me, and promptly drops her playsuit and pants so she’s standing completely naked. She sits on the loo, bent forward, hair over her face. I can hear her wee hit the basin.

I’m so drunk. She sits up laughing, cheeks flushed. Drinking whilst cooking is never a good idea. You should have come earlier. 

I had to work. I lean back against the door; I’ve already told her this.

Did I tell you I asked for a rise? I’m being paid basically nothing. They said they’ll review it in March. Josh thinks I should threaten to walk.

You should, I say. Wait a beat, then add: They loved my video.

The brand? That’s amazing! I didn’t forget, I promise. When can I see it?

  When it comes out. I had to sign a thing.

She stands, pulls up her playsuit, walks over to the sink. She smiles at herself in the mirror while she washes her hands, then I realise she’s actually checking for food in her teeth.

Shit! And how was your date? Tell me the details. I’m sorry, work has been crazy.

It was fun. He seems nice. 

Did you go back to his?

I did. 

And?

And nothing.

Why are you being so coy?

I haven’t figured out how I feel yet.

Feel? You don’t need to feel anything. It’s not supposed to be serious. You should invite him to Milo’s exhibition! 

I’m not sure we’re at that stage yet.

What stage? Rosie, you need to relax. Seriously, don’t stress about it. If you’re having fun, you’re having fun, right? Speaking of which. She pulls a baggy of white powder out of her playsuit pocket and waves it in the mirror. Don’t tell Josh, he doesn’t like sharing. And also, did I mention, Natalie wants to photograph us for some series?

Barely a breath between sentences. She shakes a little mountain onto a paracetamol box and chops it into four lines with a bank card that’s lying on the window sill. She drops her head, and snorts a line.

You and Josh? I didn’t realise you guys were a thing.

We’re not, but the sex is amazing. 

When did you sleep together?

We went for drinks. He suggested it, both got a bit drunk, I went back to his, and now… Now, I think I’m addicted. 

To him?

Ha. No! The sex. 

Do you think he’s on the same page?

Yeah, totally! That’s the amazing thing, and I’ve been really honest about it. I’m not looking for anything right now, blah, blah, blah. He knows. Anyway, Natalie says she thinks our intimacy will translate well on camera. She wants to shoot it on her rooftop terrace. Quite fun? 

She switches her finger to the other nostril, snorts another line and throws her head back sniffing. She passes the box to me. I hesitate, but I always do, and then. Then, I drop my head, snort two lines very quickly, no pause, and we walk back downstairs together. Anissa’s serving pesto pasta into big white bowls and Josh is crouched by the iPod changing the music. He turns it up: his band’s latest track. I sit and eat a few mouthfuls, but I’m not hungry anymore.

Homemade vegan pesto, Anissa says. Organic as it gets. 

A bitter drip slides down the back of my throat. I feel very hot all of a sudden, and have to stand by the doors.

It’s freezing, says Natalie, putting on her coat.

I love this, baby, Lottie says and kisses Josh on the mouth. I’ve never heard her say baby before, and I want to tease her about it, but I’m too far away and she won’t look up. I watch people lift loaded forks to their mouths, over and over. They all say it’s delicious, you’d never miss the cheese, but it needs a touch more salt maybe. Is there any more pasta? Already! It’s so hard to tell when it’s dry don’t you think, like rice, apparently a handful is the general rule, but doesn’t that depend on the size of your hand? Anissa cups her hands together to show everyone the size of her stomach. That can’t really be true? It is, it is, she thrusts her hands forward as Natalie clasps salad leaves between two wooden spoons and dumps them in a heap onto her plate.

I sit back down and Anissa pulls the doors shut. If anyone wants to smoke, they need to stand outside the glass, she says.

Natalie says, So what do you do? to Nick who says he’s a poet, and an accountant in training, which she thinks is amazing and so contemporary in the sense that it’s realistic. Financially, she means. He nods a lot, and I wonder how many times he’s heard that before. I want to ask him whether people take his poetry more or less seriously because he’s an accountant. Instead, I drink a lot more wine and get caught up in a conversation with Anissa about work again. 

Lots told me you’ve directed a film or something? 

I shake my head. Not exactly, I explain, words falling out of my mouth too quickly for me to make any sense of them, but she mainly seems to be agreeing. 

You know when everything seems to line up all of a sudden, I’m saying, like everything coming together in a line, well not a line, but you know what I mean.

So will it be on TV? Or is it a digital thing?

I don’t know exactly, maybe all of those things and they’re saying something about a launch in Selfridges. It’s going to be big, for sure.

Oh, no way. I didn’t realise you were in the industry too, Natalie says and I smile at her kindly.

Well, it’s different to what you and Lottie do, I say. I work on the creative side of things.

But it’s advertising, right? Anissa says.

Yeah, technically, but we work with a lot of really high profile filmmakers. I mean I shot our latest video on my iPhone, but the quality is good and the whole idea is to look spontaneous, you know? There’s a trend for that kind of thing, all the big brands are doing it. Similar to the influencers, but more authentic because it’s not pretending anything.

Totally. I think that’s the way it’s going. So this guy in your film, the dancer, Anissa says, pointing her fork at me. How much they paying him, out of interest?

He wasn’t a hired performer, I say, pouring myself some more wine from Nick’s expensive bottle. That’s what I’m getting at, real people rather than models or actors or whatever you want to call them. I filmed him dancing on the street.

I don’t get it, Anissa says. He wasn’t hired as a performer, but he was performing?

I nod vaguely. 

And he’s not being paid?

Not everything has to have a price, Natalie says. It’s art.

Artists get paid, Anissa says. And presumably the brand, whatever it is, sells their clothes. It’s not a charity, am I right?

Ha, no, I say. The complete opposite. It’s a luxury brand. 

Right, so they should be paying him to use the dance.

Should and will are totally different things, Natalie says.

It hasn’t been worked out yet and to be honest, I’m not really involved in that. I don’t deal with the contracts and it’s kind of a grey area, I say, twisting my hair round and round with one hand, tighter and tighter behind my head.

What does that mean? Anissa says. When she’s like this, she reminds me of Lottie, but Lottie’s leaning back in her chair, looking spaced out. I try to catch her eye, wanting her to lead me back to lightness. Josh stands up to change the music again.

Something more upbeat! Natalie squeals. I want to dance!

I don’t know, I say, looking into my plate. I release my hair over my face and for a second, I’m enclosed in my own world. 

I’m not getting at you personally, Anissa says. You know that right?

I know. I smile at her tightly and stand, waving a fresh packet of tobacco that I bought for tonight especially. Milo leaps up. I pass him a paper, stick the filter between my teeth. He squeezes my arm, and opens the door a crack.

Smoke at the table, Lottie calls on her way up the stairs. I leave the tobacco with Milo, tell him to roll me one, and follow her. We do another two lines, and my teeth go numb. I run my tongue around the inside of my mouth and say something about it being strong. Pupils wide, jaw out of shape. I know her face so well. Better than mine. 

She’s speaking very close, nearly touching: You know Rose, you’re my best friend. 

More than Natalie?

Natalie? I’ve only just met Natalie. 

My body’s pulsing, something on the inside pressing against my skin, thousands of tiny fingertips. Did you know there’s a beetle that lays its eggs inside you, and the babies hatch out and run all over your body? Or maybe it’s a spider. All those tiny little legs. I run my fingers over Lottie’s arm.

Stop. Stop. She jumps back. That’s fucking disgusting.

Downstairs, I dance with Natalie. Our bodies sway around and against each other. Someone’s pushed back the sofas to make space. 

This place is so chic, Natalie says. I love the Nordic style. 

You haven’t been here before? I say. It’s mainly Niss’s stuff. Lots likes colour and pattern. They fight about it all the time. This is an exaggeration, but Natalie won’t know whether it’s true or not so it doesn’t really matter. 

They’re nothing alike, she says. Anissa and Lottie, are they? I mean you wouldn’t be able to tell they were sisters from looking at them.

Same colour eyes, I remind her as if this is an important detail.

You have amazing eyes.

You have amazing eyes!

I don’t, she says simply, taking my wrists and swaying from side to side with her head tilted back. 

You know what? I say. You should totally do a series on sisters or friends! Female friendships.

Empowerment! Yeah! she says and spins me around and around, getting faster and faster until the room is a swirling blur. My head continues to move even after we’ve stopped. 

The music changes. I know this song. 

There’s Eton Mess and a chocolate tart. Everyone sit! Anissa shouts. Nick brought Tokaji.

Everyone takes the nearest chair, shuffling places. There’s a huge bowl of mixed berries dusted with icing sugar. Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries. I pick them out with my fingers. Thick, whipped cream. Lottie’s carving the tart into large slices while Josh nuzzles into her neck. He whispers something into her ear. What is he saying?

Named after a region in Hungry, Nick’s explaining. You’re supposed to sip it from a shot glass. 

Hung-ary, says Anissa. It’s not the same as hungry.

You should only buy fruit when it’s in season, Natalie says. And locally grown. 

Can someone pass the cream? The question repeats several times. There’s a joint being passed round. I say no, then take it. Blow out sideways, out of the corner of my mouth, like Lottie. The smoke hangs as if it’s been hooked. I wave my hand in the air, but I can’t feel anything between my fingers. I know this song.

It’s a special occasion, Anissa says. We’ve got a subscription box of veg that comes weekly.

A name appears in my head and I say it out loud: Maribou State.

Josh raises his glass across the table. 

You know, this song – I’m not sure who I’m speaking to exactly, but it feels important – this song is so beautiful, it’s like sinking into a bath. But it makes me anxious too, y’know what I mean? I don’t have the space to hold it. The ability to properly connect to the sound, get really close to it. 

Yes, a voice agrees. Yes. Yes. Yessss.

Faces like masks around the table. I see them all reacting in slow motion. These people. 

Natalie’s asking if I have any coke, a dab. She’ll pay, only wants a pinch, little lift, the hash, she says, it’s heavy. I feel like lead. 

I can’t feel anything at all, I say. 

She laughs, and I laugh with her. She probably thinks we’re becoming friends, maybe we are, maybe I’ll invite her to Ma’s wedding. I tell her this and she says yes, amazing, I’d love to come, meet your Mum, the whole family!

The joint comes back round again. I watch Anissa watching Lottie wipe her nose with the back of her hand. She disapproves, but she’s trying hard not to say anything. Next to me, very close to my ear, Nick’s trying to explain his poetry collection, something about objects being afraid of death. 

Comparisons make us distant objects, I say, feeling profound and strange.

What? he says.

I say the same thing again as if that explains it, and he says, I think I know what you mean.

I just love the idea of a suicidal spoon, Natalie says. It really gets me. 

Exactly! I say, loudly. Everyone’s too afraid to talk about death. They think death is contagious. All you need to do is say the word and people step back.

Nick refills our glasses with Tokaji. He’s a good guy, I think, taking a sip, a real, stand up, solid guy. 

My brother died, I say. You guys wouldn’t know. He was eighteen, I was twelve. I never talk about it. Never say his name. The name without the person. Does it have any meaning? Will. Half the people in the room wouldn’t have known that. See! The way you’re looking at me changed. You can’t help it. Now you’re thinking about death and it’s making you feel sorry for me, and sad and scared, but also relieved that it isn’t your dead brother or your death. The death happened to someone else so it’s alright, you don’t have to talk about it. You can’t know what it feels like, and truthfully, you don’t want to know. Why would you really?

I’m smiling a smile that feels too big for my face. The table is hushed as people withdraw, slip back down into their seats, eyes lowering. My throat is so dry, the Tokaji burns when I drink.

I’m sorry, says Natalie. 

I didn’t realise, says Nick. 

I see Lottie stand. Her eyes darting round the table. 

It’s fine! Completely fine, I continue. It’s not like I know you that well, it’s not like you’re one of my best friends. And anyway, it makes it awkward, it’s a mood killer, isn’t it? No one knows what to say. I’m sorry. I gesture at all of them, then laugh. I’m aware of how I must seem, but I can’t stop. If I do, I’ll scream. None of you met him obviously so you’re all thinking about sadness in the abstract, or about something completely unrelated, most likely. I know you’re not picturing him.

I met Will, remember? Lottie says, gently. At your house one summer. He was making toast topless in the kitchen. She’s standing beside me now. 

I see him then with his badly bleached blonde hair, looking through all the cupboards, leaving the doors open while Ma follows him around anxiously. What are you looking for, darling? What are you looking for?

Weight pours into my body at an incredible speed.

For a long time no one says anything and then Natalie decides that’s enough. She changes the music again. Her friend’s band. Listen, everyone listen. I stand up, forget about the tiling in the bathroom downstairs, open the door and have to turn around again. Lottie follows me upstairs, gives me a big hug, and then waits, looking right into my eyes to see if I will cry. She thinks that it would be a good idea to do more coke, finish the bag, why not? Let’s have fun, okay? Licking our fingers, round the plastic, rubbing our gums. Horseradish taste. A whole gram on a Tuesday night, what are we like? We laugh into each other’s faces. I don’t tell her that I’m scared that my heart’s beating too fast, that I can’t feel half of my face, that I might die, if not now, then later, one day, alone, in my sleep.

I kind of wish Natalie would just leave, she says. You can stay by the way. Olive’s in Sri Lanka.

Coming back down the stairs, we pass Anissa and Nick on their way to bed. Anissa tells us to keep the music down for the neighbours. 

Lots says, Yes, alright, okay. Got it.

Natalie’s swaying around the room. She tries to pull us in, but Lottie curls up next to Josh and I sit with Milo on the other sofa. I wonder if Milo will leave, or stay. He’d have to sleep in the same bed as me and something would probably end up happening. I can’t decide whether I’m into the idea or not.

How is it 3am? Lottie says, after we’ve been silent for hours, or minutes.

Shit. 3am. I should get an Uber, Natalie says. Lottie looks at me and I stifle a laugh.

Yeah, me too. Milo stands up, stretching. I want him to stay, suddenly, desperately. 

You could stay Milo, I say.

There’s only Olive’s room, Lottie says.

Oh yeah, I say, unable to think of any good excuse for him to share with me.

When they’ve left, Lottie, Josh and I take the plates through to the kitchen, moving slowly and silently around one another and then, we walk in a trail up the stairs. Lottie tells me she loves me, kisses me on the cheek and closes her door. 

Olive’s room smells of dust and the heavy scents of an unfamiliar body, but the window’s stiff and I’m too weak to push it open more than an inch. I drink a glass of old, gritty water from the bedside table, and lie back fully dressed, watching the ceiling slide sideways. I close my eyes and try to bring Will’s face into my head. I haven’t tried in a long time, superstitious that if I try too hard, he’ll disappear.

Millie Walton is a London-based fiction and art writer and editor. She is a graduate of the Prose Fiction MFA at the University of East Anglia, and is currently working on her first novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Soft Punk and The Dillydoun Review.

I wait in the passenger seat for Dad to start the engine. The window is cool against my forehead as I lean into the glass, watching Mum on the doorstep, stifling tears. Dad wouldn’t stop groaning about his back as he loaded my stuff into the boot, but I know it’s just his way of telling me he’s sad to see me go. I slip my hand into my pocket and run my fingertips over my ammonite.

            As we pull away, I whisper ‘Goodbye, house,’ like I did as a child, imagining it calling a farewell back to me.

            Dad laughs. ‘You’ll be home by Christmas.’

My parents moved into their half of 8 Fortune Road on the first of January 2002. Dad says he was so hungover from New Year’s Eve he threw up as soon as they opened the door, bright blue sick on the whitewashed walls.

            ‘Like nothing you’ve seen before – aquamarine! We were wild back then.’

            ‘Stop exaggerating, Gaz,’ Mum says every time he gets overexcited.

            I crashed into their lives two weeks later. They say it was the worst decision of their marriage – not me, the house, I mean – ’cause it was a building site with no running water. There’s a photo of me in my crib balanced on paint pots, bug-eyed and terrified at the plumber’s moony face. I was cute – everyone says so when we get the albums out – but I could bawl so loudly the sound thundered down the street.

            ‘Screaming bloody murder, you were,’ Mum likes to remind me, as if I could have done anything about it. Only Lola could shut me up.

            Lola: the lady next door. Her husband, Patrick, sold my parents our side of the house. Apparently they didn’t need the whole building to themselves, so they split it in two, right down the middle. Our front door opens straight into our living room, which I never thought was weird until I saw my friends’ homes. The main hallway is shared between the two sides, as is the original green door, so our post always used to get jumbled. Noises passed through the connecting walls like nerves sparking across the two sides of your brain. I learnt about that in Biology GCSE: left side equals logic, mathematical function; right side is for creativity and imagination. It’s pretty obvious to me which side was which, at number 8.

            Lola was Spanish, but I never heard her speak it. She sounded more like American to me, which she said is because she learnt English from shows like Friends, which my parents always quote from even though I’ve told them it’s completely outdated. When I was a kid Lola taught me to roll my tongue to make the sound of a motorbike, or a purring cat, and she pronounced ‘cupboard’ like ‘cup board’ despite everyone correcting her. Sometimes she’d lift me up to the green front door so I could run the tip of my finger over the smooth golden 8, making sure not to lose contact, imagining I could go on for infinity. She wore a purple pashmina that I always thought made her look like royalty. It had sparkling crystals hanging amongst the tasseled ends. I liked to stroke the fabric, then shake it and listen to them tinkling. It felt like the most precious thing in the world.

            We used to have a photo of the five of us in the garden on a summery day. It’s the only vivid memory I have before the age of seven. Lola made paella, saffron-stained, the colour of sunshine. Patrick had me in stitches putting the prawns’ heads on his fingers and giving them squeaky voices as they danced across the table. They’d brought cake for pudding, but it had sunk in the middle.

            ‘I don’t have your magic touch!’ Lola exclaimed to Mum.

            Mum shrugged and smiled. ‘Well, they say baking is a science, cookery is an art.’

            ‘That explains it,’ Lola said, tossing her hot-chocolate hair over her shoulder.

            No one realised I kept stealing the big, beefy strawberries from the Pimm’s jug until I said I felt dizzy, and they made me go and lie down. Under the whirring fan beside my bed, I heard them sing, laugh, and whisper into the early hours.

            Years later, after The Incident, Mum took that photo down, but it had been hanging on the kitchen wall so long it left a yellow square that had to be painted over.

Patrick and Lola were antique dealers. Patrick especially would use amazing words like ‘baroque’ or ‘rococo’ or ‘filigree’ in his passionate cockney accent. He was chubby, ginger, and had inherited his trade from his dad’s dad’s dad. When I was a kid, he’d often sit in the back garden too long; his skin turned orange and blended into his scalp so all of a sudden he was a big jolly satsuma. He told me stories about his frequent travels to Scandinavia to collect antiques. Once, he backpacked across South America, but he said I was too young to hear the finer details. ‘I’ll tell you on your eighteenth birthday,’ he said, winking.

            They had a shop in Old Street selling art and furniture but had to let it go ’cause developers bought the whole street, knocked it down and turned it into flats. On the day of The Incident, a moving van grumbled noisily outside the house, and the front path was so full of stuff I couldn’t see down it. I was reminded of that game where the floor is lava and you have to jump from chair to chair. At ten years old, I was up for it. Dad was not.

            ‘What’s all this?’ he demanded of Patrick when he saw the boxes and furniture piled up in the hallway.

            ‘It’s temporary. Whilst we look for new premises.’ Patrick was sweating, his arms wrapped around a huge glass vase.

            ‘And how long will that take?’

            Patrick shrugged. ‘Weeks. Months, maybe.’

            Dad was turning red. ‘And you expect us to be okay with all this? Blocking the way, so we can barely get in and out of the house?’

            I heard the vase smash before I saw it in pieces at Patrick’s feet.

            ‘If we hadn’t sold half our fucking house to you, this wouldn’t be an issue, would it Gaz? WOULD IT?’

            That was one of the few times in my life I’ve seen Dad speechless.

            By the following morning, the stuff was gone. Dad went over to knock on their door, to ‘patch things up,’ but no one answered. Later, we heard Patrick’s raised voice through the walls. I caught only one line before Mum turned the radio up, drowning it out. ‘It’s snakes like Gaz who are cashing in and ruining us.’

After that, I was instructed to speak no more than a hurried hello to the pair of them. The last proper conversation I had with Lola, she was sitting in the back garden. It was a freezing day, and she had no coat on; I only went out there to do Mum a favour and knock mud off my trainers. At once, I noticed her brown curls were streaked with white. I asked her why she’d even think of dyeing it to look like that, and she said, ‘It goes like this when you’re sad, hon. Wanna know what my name means?’

            I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure.

            She put her hands on my shoulders and pulled me in close, whispering, ‘Lola’s short for Dolores.’ Then she sighed and looked over my shoulder. ‘Dolores means our lady of sorrows. How ’bout that?’

            I leant away because her teeth looked furry and her breath was sour. Then I made an excuse and went inside. I felt bad, though, and asked Mum if I could take her some leftover crumble.

            ‘No,’ she said.

            Later, I saw her scraping it into the bin.

Last time I saw Patrick, he was putting the bins out. It was raining. I almost didn’t notice him from under my brolly as I splashed through the gate, and he ignored me when I called hello even though I saw him see me. As he shuffled ahead up the garden path, I noticed the ends of his jogging bottoms were ripped and frayed, the long ribbons of material dragging like tendrils through the puddles.

            Two weeks later he stuck a sign on the lamppost outside the house.

            ‘Whoever’s fucking dog is SHITTING on this street, get that creature put down before I do it myself. NOT ON MY TURF.’ He’d typed it out in bold lettering, laminated the paper and attached it with cable ties.

            Mum fetched the scissors and cut it down, her hand over her mouth. She shooed me away because of the bad language, thrusting it under her armpit as she marched inside. ‘I’m eighteen, Mum,’ I told her. ‘I know swear words for fuck’s sake.’ She pretended she didn’t hear me and started chewing her lip, which she does when she’s trying to stop herself from laughing or crying.

            Dad came home in his usual mood that night. He works in property, and even though we did ‘take your daughter to work day’ I still don’t really know what his job entails. But I do know that they build flats in run down places, digging up old ground to try and make it new.

            He always gets back all red in the face, probably from standing in someone’s armpit on the tube. Mum once tried to teach him relaxing breathing techniques she learnt in yoga, but when he held his breath, he puffed up like a cushion and the vein above his left eyebrow throbbed horribly like something was stuck under there, wanting to get out.

            Now, when he gets home, he marches around the house and moves anything that’s not in the right place. ‘Where do these live?’ he’ll say, holding up my slippers, or my headphones, or any other inoffensive miscellaneous object. Then, he’ll take a beer from the fridge, and start re-stacking the dishwasher, because, apparently, ‘there’s no point using it if it’s not loaded properly.’

            When Mum showed him Patrick’s offensive dog sign, Dad rolled his eyes, shook his head and said, ‘Jesus. They’re mad. Let’s order a curry.’

            I ate my saag paneer in front of David Attenborough, his voice smooth and runny as the melting ice caps, not quite loud enough to drown out my parents bickering on the sofa.

            Later, Dad brought up the subject of university again. He kept ordering prospectuses; they were stacking up on my desk, a horrible waste of paper for me to look at every day. My science grades were decent, so I’d considered studying medicine, thinking it would be nice to help people, but I fainted when we had to dissect a sheep’s heart. Dad thought engineering was the best option, for the career trajectory. ‘You could be a pharmacist!’ had become Mum’s favourite saying. The issue was, I was distinctly average at pretty much everything. My teachers even said so at parents’ evenings. When I was younger, I tried getting into chess, painting, astronomy, and ballet, but I wasn’t bothered by any of them. I often wondered what would happen if I couldn’t decide what to do with my life. It scared me.

In primary school we went on a trip to Dorset to find fossils. I didn’t enjoy the whole excursion much; my best friend Claudia had ditched me for Lottie, the new kid, so I spent most of it plotting when to put gum in her hair, which I didn’t, in the end, because someone stole that from me, too. It was blustery and cold, the rain coming at us sideways. Everyone was whining.

            We were each given a little magnifying glass that hung around your neck and were sent off to the beach in Lyme Regis with the hope of discovering something someone would one day display in the Natural History Museum. My hands turned blue because I’d forgotten my gloves.

            There was such an abundance of fossils on the beach that pretty much everyone managed to find something, however small and chipped and worn away. On the coach home the popular kids on the back seats started lobbing their collections at the back of everyone’s heads, so Miss Scott made the driver pull over so she could unclip her seatbelt and get up to yell at them. She didn’t see me reach down under my seat to collect the fossils, abandoned in the forest of the other kids’ legs.

            When I got home, I showed my parents my treasure. I laid the pieces out on my desk in my room so I could look at them every day. I polished them religiously, imagining I was restoring their proper value, their worth others failed to see. But the routine dwindled, and over time they were swept away, disappearing gradually as I grew up. Only one, somehow, survived: a tiny ammonite that perched on a stack of books I’d never read, powdered with dust.

I woke up on a Saturday morning at 11:54am, and trotted downstairs in my bed socks and dressing gown which is too short on the arms and has a burn mark on the collar from when I left it drying on the radiator too long. It smelt like biscuits and home. I made coffee and crumpets thick with Gran’s crab apple jelly. Dad was out back with a rake, levelling the soil of the uneven grass. ‘I’ve got the Bristol brochure for you on the kitchen table,’ he called. ‘Please just have a flick through.’

            I sat on the patio and stuck my legs out so they reached the edge of the upturned lawn, feeling the bits of grit and sediment between my toes. The prospectus was stiff with plasticky paper, so I cracked the spine open at a random page. On one side, BSc Zoology, complete with an image of a baby panda. On the other, BSc Palaeontology. I squinted at the photo of an excavation site in Argentina. Then I saw the fees and felt a bit sick.

            It was only when the front of the house was suddenly flashing blue, and a siren was screeching like a banshee that I realised something was wrong. Dad looked up at me, then into the house. He was through the back door before I could even move, his shoes smearing mud across the spotless beige carpet. I scrambled to my feet, dropping the prospectus to the ground.

            He threw open the door to the hallway to find people buzzing around in high-vis, spilling out the green door and into the street. I saw a stretcher loaded into the back of an ambulance like an Ocado delivery. A woman hunched over, her face covered in hands so twisted and gnarled they could have been all knuckles. Her silver hair glowing in the midday sun. Then a slam of the ambulance doors, and they were away. Dad rushed out, grabbed a paramedic by the elbow, leant in to question him. They exchanged a few words. As the guy gesticulated I saw Dad grow pale.

            ‘What’s happened?’ I mumbled as he retreated up the path.

            ‘It’s Patrick. He’ll be okay. He was having chest pains, but he’ll be fine.’ He didn’t quite look me in the eye. He just crossed his arms and stood there in the doorway. Then he rubbed his face with his hands. I heard the scratch of stubble against his palms, wondered what to say, and settled for silence.

On Sunday morning my parents woke me up to say that Patrick had passed away.

            ‘He wasn’t in pain,’ Mum whispered, stroking my hair the way she used to when I’d stub my toe or feel sick from too many sweets.

            I didn’t feel anything until I got in the shower to wash my hair and I thought of Lola and how old she looked, all crumpled up like a houseplant whose owner had forgotten to water it.

            The day carried on like any other, though I was immediately conscious of the resounding silence coming from next door. Finally, the sun set, staining the clouds pink and orange, like a two-year-old had got hold of highlighters and drawn all over the sky. At dinner, the landline rang and made me jump, like an echo from the past. Even Mum looked startled, lost for a second as to where we’d put it; no one had used it in years. Then she hurried out of the room.

            She returned moments later. ‘That was the hospital.’

            ‘How did they get this number?’ Dad said.

            She shrugged. ‘Lola’s malnourished but they’ve put her on a drip. They’ve asked if we can go next door, get her some clothes and things she might need. I said I’ll drop them round tomorrow morning.’ Her chin began to tremble. She pulled out her chair at the table and lowered herself down, cautiously, feeling behind her for the seat. ‘I didn’t realise they were in such a state,’ she said, her voice cracking.

            We ate the rest of our spag bol not looking at each other.

In the morning, Dad found the spare key in an envelope in a drawer in the desk in the spare room.

            ‘This must be it,’ he said.

            We stepped out into the hallway. For five minutes Dad wrestled with the key in the lock. ‘It’s all rusted,’ he said. Then he gave up and tried the handle. The door clicked open.

            ‘I suppose Lola trusted us enough to leave it open,’ Mum murmured.

            Dad tried to push the door wide, but something was blocking it from behind, so we had to slide in sideways, one after the other.

            The smell that hit me was so formidable it was like someone bellowing, deafeningly, directly into my face, with no way for me to escape. Mum instantly began to retch. It stank simultaneously of rotting food and unwashed clothes. Dad had his nose pinched between his fingers; his voice was squeaky and nasal as he spluttered, ‘God almighty.’ He flicked a switch, the light stuttered on.

            Everywhere: boxes. Boxes of rubbish, boxes of papers, boxes damp on the bottom, boxes ripped open, boxes sealed shut. Then, beneath, above, and beyond the boxes: furniture. A sofa with all its stuffing spilling out. Stacks of chairs leaning dangerously like the tower of Pisa. I counted five coffee tables, end to end, and seven armchairs, one of them covered in layers of bedsheets.

            A narrow gangway had been carved out to form a way across. Mum struggled through, opened the door into the kitchen. She took one look, then clamped her eyes shut.

            The work surfaces were barely visible beneath the mountains of cans, pots, pans, packets, bottles, plates, cartons. An open plastic box of moulding meringues sat on top of an upturned colander like black ice at the summit of the Alps. I stepped forward and felt a crunch under my sole; praying I’d not just killed something, I held my breath and lifted my foot. It was an egg. One of many smashed across the tiled floor.

            ‘I’m going back!’ Mum cried theatrically. She reminded me of a contestant in one of those desert island endurance shows. ‘I can’t do this!’ She turned and wrestled her way back into the living room, disappearing into the jungle of stuff.

            ‘Let’s get Lola’s things,’ Dad mumbled at me, as though not wanting to wake the creatures lurking in the shadows.

            Dust puffed up with every step on the staircase. At the top, a wooden cabinet lay on its side, like a felled tree. It blocked one of two doors. Dad steered towards the available one next to it, nudged it open with the tip of his toe.

            ‘Wait here,’ he said, gruffly.

            ‘I’m not five.’

            He softened. ‘I just don’t want you to hurt yourself on all this…’ He flapped a hand at the mess.

            I chewed my lip and nodded in assent. A moth flapped lazily across my eye-line.

            Once out of sight, I could hear him crashing around, grunting in aggravation. It was only a couple of minutes before I started to feel the blocked door staring at me. A thin strip of light was just visible along the edge of the frame. I reached over the cabinet and felt around for the door-handle. I didn’t have to push hard; it swung open like the cover of a heavy book.

            Daylight flooded out, illuminating the hallway. I gripped the sides of the door frame, held on, and leant in.

            Inside, rows and rows of glass sat on long transparent shelving: glass vases, glass cups, glass jugs gleaming in the daylight rushing in from the open window. Slow as I’d ever moved, I placed one foot, then the other, over the cabinet and entered the room.

            It was like stepping inside a chandelier.

            Some vases were so tall, so delicate, it seemed a miracle they could stay upright. Others were clear as a contact lens; I could just make out where they began and ended from the minute magnifying effect of their curved rims. A series of glasses on the top shelf were intricately patterned with swirling, floral grooves. There was not a single speck of dust in the air; I noticed, in the corner, a black box labelled ‘Polish & Clean’.

            I felt Dad appear behind me. He stood there, still, with me. Dead quiet, as though one breath would be enough to send the glass smashing to the floor. Eventually, he nudged me softly at the elbow, and we retreated. He closed the door with complete care. In the last of the light, I looked up at his face, and saw his eyes swimming with tears. Then the door fell into place, and it was dark once again.

            ‘What did you get for her?’ I asked as we padded downstairs.

            He said nothing, just opened a plastic bag to show some rolled up t-shirts and a stained pair of plimsolls.

            In the kitchen, the smell wasn’t so bad; I thought I must be getting used to it. I noticed things I didn’t before: an open page of the Radio Times with TV shows circled; a recipe for lamb stew on the fridge door, with ‘parsley’ and ‘pinch of cumin’ scrawled under the ingredients list. And, in the living room, beneath all the rubbish and junk and antiques, the skeleton of what once was: a sofa, coffee table, and armchair, happily waiting for someone to occupy them.

            As we passed through, I spotted a piece of purple material peeking out from one of the boxes. I reached over and gave it a tug. It fell freely into my hand, the colour dulled by a layer of dust that erupted as I shook it loose. Along the edge, the crystals were like teardrops in the tassels, tinkling ever so slightly.

            I folded it neatly, took Dad’s elbow, and slipped it into the plastic bag in his hand.

Back in my room, I felt hot and cold all at the same time. I sat down at my desk. I laid my head on its smooth wooden surface. I stayed there for minutes, my heart in my throat.

            When I looked up, I saw the ammonite in its place, on top of the stack of books. I reached out, picked it up, rested it in my palm. I wiped it clean with the edge of my t-shirt, clearing the grooves of its years of accumulated dirt. Softly, I blew over it, then let my finger follow its spiralling shape, not losing contact, going round and round. Then, gently, I closed it inside my fist.

Alice Ivor lives in London. After graduating from the University of Birmingham, she went on to train and work as an actress across theatre and television. She is currently completing an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, alongside writing her first novel.

The year I turned fourteen, Mr Howard took the top set for maths. He was one of four male teachers at Carpenden High School for Girls but the only one anyone ever talked about. He wasn’t traditionally good-looking. His wavy hair was slightly too long, his fleshy nose a little too large for his face, his mouth an incongruous pink rosebud, but many girls found him irredeemably sexy because of his reputation. Legend was he had once drawn male genitalia on the whiteboard and pointed out the parts women should handle with care due to their extreme sensitivity, but we didn’t have phones back then, so no one had proof.

There was an expectant buzz as we filed into class for the first lesson of term but it proceeded in a disappointingly conventional manner. He took the register, distributed textbooks and told us which page to turn to, then began writing algebraic equations on the board. As his arm worked up and down, I fixed my eyes on his shirt sleeve. Before I could stop myself, I had him in swimming trunks, kissing me. Next thing I knew, we were lying on a beach, gazing into one another’s eyes. When I refocussed my attention, I had no idea what he was talking about and had to ask Lauren what we were doing. 

After that near miss, I saved my daydreams for the bus journey home or the quiet times before I fell asleep, when I would run my hands over my body, pretending they were his. 

In the meantime, maths lessons remained focussed and mundane. We pressed on through factorisation, linear equations and surds without a hint of impropriety. As a class, we felt let down.

It wasn’t until the week before the Christmas holidays that we had our first real ‘Mr Howard’ experience. He had set us a maths test featuring questions on Christmas food and drink to mark the festive season. There was a lot more chatter than usual and as we worked, someone asked, ‘What’s Strega, sir?’

‘Italian liqueur,’ he said. ‘It means witch. Any of you tried it?’

‘We’re too young to drink, sir,’ someone else called out.

‘I don’t believe that for a moment,’ he said. ‘Are you telling me not one of you has had a Bacardi Breezer or a Smirnoff Ice?’

We exchanged guilty glances. Most of us had. 

‘Next you’ll be telling me that none of you has ever tried smoking.’ He looked at a girl who had been caught with cigarettes a few weeks before. ‘Or boys.’

A stillness fell over the room.

‘Don’t tell me you don’t think about boys,’ he continued, looking around the class with a complicit smile. ‘At your age, you ought not to be thinking about anything else. Unless you think about girls. Which would be a great waste for us boys.’

Before anyone could react, he had turned back to the board.

‘Right,’ he said, drawing a series of curved lines. ‘Let’s make a start on parabolas.’

Those few minutes derailed my Christmas holidays. I spent long, solitary hours in my room, dreaming up increasingly steamy scenarios starring Mr Howard. We were on a school trip overseas, and when the rest of the group left without us for reasons that were never clear, we had to share a double bed in the only remaining vacant room in the hotel. He invited me to stay late after school and when we were alone in the classroom, he told me he couldn’t resist me and pressed his body into mine. As I became bolder in my fantasies, I added detail, a tongue here, a finger there, using my body to play both parts.

When we went back to school, I avoided all eye contact with him in case he could tell what I’d been up to. One day as we were working on an exercise, I caught a whiff of aftershave. He was crouching beside me.

‘It’s okay to look at me,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I don’t bite.’ Then he stood up and zigzagged his finger over my calculations.

‘Well done, Beth. Absolutely right.’ And he walked to the front of the class.

When the lesson finished, everyone wanted to know what he had said to me in private. 

‘He was just checking my work,’ I said. No one believed me.

After that, I made a point of keeping my eyes on him but the effort was so great that I didn’t always listen. Sometimes I would tune in to find he had ‘done a Mr Howard,’ and instead of talking about linear inequalities or quadratic equations, he would be expounding on the pros and cons of condoms or extolling the sensual pleasure of slipping between clean sheets.

One day just before half term, I surfaced to find the whole class sitting in silence, pencils down, as he surveyed us with the lop-sided smile that figured so prominently in my daydreams.

‘Probability,’ he said. ‘How probable is it that any of you will remember anything I’ve taught you?’

A few girls giggled, uncertain whether this was his way of introducing a new topic.

He scanned the room, letting his gaze rest longer on some girls than others.

‘How probable is it that you’ll fall in love? Get married? Have children?’

Our eyes followed him as he walked from one side of the classroom to the other.

‘And how probable is it that any of that will make you truly happy?’

He stopped pacing and sketched an arc in the air. 

‘Imagine yourselves, if you will, twenty years from now. You’ll be in your early thirties. None of you, I hope, will be a virgin by then.’

He let his words sink in.

‘The thing about sex,’ he continued, as if he had been talking about it all along, ‘is that you girls aren’t taught enough about it. You learn the mechanics but nothing about the reality. In my view, you should be seizing every available opportunity to find out. Because in truth, it’s a natural and pleasurable act between two consenting adults, male or female. So don’t waste too much time on algebra and trigonometry. Learn something really useful. Learn all about yourselves. Get to know your bodies. Find out what stirs you and what leaves you cold. Experiment. Make mistakes. Above all, never feel guilty about anything you do with another human being, as long as it’s what you both want. If you can follow that advice, you will dramatically increase the probability of your future happiness.’

He paused, arms folded.

‘Masturbation.’

I felt as if he were speaking to me personally.

‘If you don’t know how to do it, find out.’

There was a movement to my left. Lauren had her hand up.

‘Please sir,’ she said, ‘could you tell us our half term homework?’

He smiled. ‘I just did.’ Then he went to the board and wrote rapidly in untidy capitals: PLEASE REVISE CHAPTERS 1 AND 2.

The squeak of the marker pen was the only sound in the room. 

When he was done, he turned around, marker pen in hand, and said, ‘For those of you looking for a less exciting time, I suggest you do this.’ 

At lunchtime, we sat in a huddle in our form room.

‘Perhaps we should say something to Mrs Drew,’ said Lauren.

But we all talked her out of it. We didn’t want to be the ones who put a spoke in his wheels. 

After half term, Miss Jordan took us for maths. Mr Howard had taken ‘a leave of absence’ for personal reasons. Lauren swore blind she had said nothing.

I next came across him during the Easter holidays. I had spent the afternoon in town and was waiting in the rain for my bus home when a dirty blue car with tinted windows pulled up and the driver wound down his window. Mr Howard was wearing an open-necked shirt and a pullover, and I could hear classical music playing on the radio.

‘Beth,’ he said. ‘Can I offer you a lift?’

I was faintly surprised he still existed.

‘Thanks, but it’s probably out of your way. I’m going to Hillers End.’

‘Not at all. Come on, hop in. It’s filthy weather.’

I was cold, wet and fed up. I scuttled round to the passenger side and climbed in. The car was warm and smelt of pine air freshener. He gave me a quick sideways smile.

‘You looked like a drowned rat.’

He took a route I didn’t recognise but I assumed he was avoiding the busy main roads. He asked how I was and how school was going, then lapsed into silence. I was happy not to talk. After a while, he pulled into a lay-by overlooking open countryside and turned off the engine, killing the music so that the only sound was rain drumming on the roof of the car. He twisted to face me, one hand draped over the steering wheel. 

‘You know I’ve been dismissed, don’t you, Beth?’

My heart started to pound. ‘We guessed as much.’

He stared out of the window. The label of his pullover was sticking up.

‘I’m very fond of you, Beth. I’ll miss teaching you.’

The rain was even heavier now. The windscreen was a wall of water.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Best get you home.’

But he didn’t switch on the engine.

‘How old are you now?’ he asked.

I was sure he must know. ‘Fifteen in November.’ Suddenly, fourteen sounded too young.

‘Have you had sex yet?’ he said, reaching for the ignition. He could have been checking my knowledge of polynomials. 

I blushed deeply. In all my daydreams, this was a scenario I had overlooked.

‘Don’t be embarrassed.’ He seemed surprised by the idea. ‘You’re a pretty girl. Pretty and clever. That’s a winning combination.’

He gave a fleeting glance at his groin. So did I. He saw me looking. 

‘Mind of its own,’ he said, apologetic.

I had never knowingly been in the presence of an erect penis and in the midst of my confusion, I was disappointed it was not more evident.

‘Want to cop a feel?’

He made it sound harmless, an educational experience offered to a precocious student.

‘Go on. Got to start somewhere. Might as well be me.’

He leant back to make access easier. I rested my hand on something rod-like that was much firmer than I expected, quite unlike a body part. It felt like it could do a lot of damage.

‘Want to try something else?’ he said.

‘Like what?

‘Like this.’

He closed his eyes, and placing his hand on top of mine, began to move it up and down, moving it faster and faster until he let out a sudden gasp. As soon as his grip loosened, I took my hand back and massaged my fingers.

He opened his eyes and said, ‘In the glove compartment. Tissues.’

He undid his trousers, reached inside and mopped himself up, then screwed up the used tissues and dropped them at his feet.

‘Oh, my sweet little Beth,’ he said as he zipped himself up.

‘Did I do it right?’ I asked. I was acutely aware of my inexperience and felt he must be judging me.

He smiled as if I had said something funny. ‘Yes, you did it right.’ He reached out and stroked my cheek. ‘I really should get you home.’  

He wiped the steamed-up windows with his elbow and switched on the engine, Classical music filled the car.

We didn’t talk again until we reached Hillers End.

‘I’m the next street over,’ I said. ‘You can drop me here.’

He brought the car to a halt and looked at me with his deep-set grey eyes.

‘If I were you, I’d get straight into a nice hot bath,’ he said.

When I got home, I ran up to the bathroom and locked the door. I looked in the mirror to check if my face showed any visible signs of what had just happened then undid my trousers, placed my hand inside my knickers and rubbed myself.

After the Easter holidays, Lauren told us she knew why Joanne King had not come back to school.

‘She slept with Mr Howard,’ she said. ‘And now she’s pregnant.’

I felt a murderous pang of jealousy. Joanne King was seventeen. It was completely legal.

I didn’t see him again for another twenty years, at a probability and stats conference where I was giving a paper. He approached me during the coffee break, wearing the tentative expression of a fan hoping for a precious moment with a favourite celebrity. His hair, now flecked with grey, was still a shade too long and I could see broken veins on his nose. He wasn’t as tall as I remembered, but I had mostly seen him standing at the front of a classroom. It felt odd to be able to look him in the eye.

‘Dr Bremner,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you remember me.’

‘Of course I do. How are you, Mr Howard?’ I kept my voice neutral and polite.

His face lit up. ‘Well.’

‘Are you still teaching?’ I couldn’t imagine that he was.

‘Semi-retired. I do a bit of private tuition here and there. In the end, I had enough of schools. But I’m so pleased you’ve made a career in mathematics. You were an outstanding student.’

‘Was I?’

‘Oh, yes. You really made an impression.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘Tell me more about yourself. Are you married? Children? If you don’t mind me asking.’

‘I have two boys. And you?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing that lasted, I’m afraid. Probably for the best.’  

His attention wavered. One of my graduate students, Elisabeta, had come up and was waiting patiently for a moment to intervene. I noticed Mr Howard appraising her rapidly, his eyes sliding over her breasts and legs before looking at her face.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said. ‘Tim Lowther needs a word.’

Something in the quick sideways glance she gave Mr Howard suggested she had felt his scrutiny.

‘This is Mr Howard,’ I said. ‘He was my maths teacher at school.’

Her expression stayed cool.

‘Amazing.’

He smiled, late middle age indulging youthful language.

‘I’m very proud of her. She was one of the best students I’ve ever taught.’

His eyes darted towards me, encouraging me to admire his performance. 

‘Tell Tim I’ll be with him in a minute,’ I said.

As Elisabeta walked away, Mr Howard’s eyes followed her, then he turned to me and said, ‘It’s been so good to see you again. Perhaps we’ll bump into each other at another conference. I like to keep my knowledge up to date. Even though teaching has changed beyond recognition.’ He smiled again. ‘O tempera, o mores. We live in different times.’

‘Indeed, we do,’ I said.

‘Is it progress, though?’ he asked. ‘What do you think?’

I was sure he remembered the car journey we had taken all those years before.

‘I don’t really know.’ I felt a faint echo of my fourteen-year-old excitement alongside my adult revulsion.

He leant in and touched me lightly on the arm , saying in a confidential tone, ‘Forgive me, but the coffee’s got to me.’ He put his cup on a nearby table but instead of heading for the gents, he stopped next to Elisabeta and whispered something into her ear. With a sharp laugh, she took a step backwards. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a card. As he walked away, she tore it into little pieces and dropped them into an empty cup. When she saw me watching her, she came over.

‘Bit of an old perv, your teacher,’ she said. ‘Was he always like that?’

‘I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.’

‘We had a teacher,’ she said. ‘We called him Mr Handy.’

For a moment we stood silent, then she said, ‘Don’t forget to see Tim.’

Mr Howard had reached the swing doors leading to the lobby. I was seized with the urge to run after him, yelling: How many girls? How many schools? but my fourteen-year-old self had questions that were just as pressing: Was it different with me? Was I special?

The following year, I heard he’d been charged with indecent assault. He got a suspended sentence.

Abigail Seltzer is a Scottish writer based in London. She has been published in the 2013 Lightship anthology, Storgy, Visual Verse (as Alex Petrie) and Charlie Fish/Drabbles. She is now working on the novel she started on the Faber Academy six month novel course in 2019. She completed Curtis Brown’s short story course in 2020.

I can see him holding on to the far buoy with his head leant back, staring out to the horizon. I watch his bright red cap bob between the waves as I sit in my lifeguard Kayak. Paddle across my lap. Swimming shorts dampened by the sea. 

It’s been three days now. 

“Seth,” Colin booms from the shore, pointing towards the man. “Go and bloody check on him then.”

I’m there in less than thirty seconds. 

“You OK?” I slam the paddle into water to stop and circle him. 

“I’m fine,” he replies. 

His face is tanned and weather-beaten with loose dark red skin around his jaw. A lop-sided grin creeps out the side of his mouth, revealing a chipped front left tooth. Sun block congeals on his grey stubble. 

“Do you need help getting back to the shore?” I ask. 

“I’m good here,” he smiles into the distance. “Thanks.”

“Are you cold?” I angle my head down to try and catch his eye.

“I’m ok.” His blue goggles give nothing away. “Thanks for asking.” 

“You’ll be colder than you feel.” 

Colin’s asked me to push him on this. He says not knowing their own body is what kills people out here. 

“I’m good.” He bites his bottom lip. 

“No panicked feelings?” Colin wants me to explicitly ask this one now. Says sometimes people don’t even know how scared they are. 

“Nope.” He lets the saltwater lap up into his face as he angles his head up to look at me. “I’m going to stay out here till sunset and then make my way in.” He then turns back and stares into the distance. 

I follow his gaze. Maybe I’m immune to the view but all I see is blue. The ocean a slightly darker shade to the sky. Silhouettes of tankers mark the horizon. 

“OK, well I’ve got to give you this.” I dangle a whistle on a red string in front of him. “So you can alert us if anything changes. Things can change quickly at sea.”

“Really?” He looks up at me. His red swimming cap creases as frowns. 

“It’s my boss,” I nod over to the shore. 

I feel awkward as he looks me up and down. “I’m just doing my job.” 

“Health and safety, eh?” He takes the whistle and tuts as he puts it round his neck.   

“Something like that,” I say.  

It’s not how Colin had put it. “I’m not having some nutcase drown on me,” is how Colin put it, “losing me business.” Colin’s an old school local who knew my Dad back in the day, although we’ve never spoken about that. He gave me this gig when I finished school couple years ago and let me take it back on my summers in between Uni. The most capable swimmer in town gets it once they’re 18 unless Colin thinks there’s something up with them. I guess that’s been me for the last few years and it’s done me well enough. 

****

After a week, the crowd at the Boar’s Head started to notice him. Not your regular blow-in, but not yet a settler either. 

Blow-ins pass through for day or two. Hoping the fresh sea air with blow something away. Settlers hang around – not local by name or accent but they start to feel familiar enough. Some of them get accepted into the Boar after a while, but others stay on the outside. Something about them reminds us that we live at the end of the line.

The Boar’s Head sits at end of the harbour arm with rusty boat parts hanging from the low ceiling, heavy black wooden doors, and small green windows. Old currency and photos are pinned to a corkboard behind the bar. 

I think there’s a photo of my Dad in there – hidden under the sun-curled images of drunk middle-aged men with red faces. He was a settler – a city guy who came for something and found it for a while before leaving when I was seven, which I’ve been told to feel lucky about over the years. We don’t have photos of him at home but sometimes I can picture his face – crooked teeth, blue eyes and light brown hair down to his collar. I don’t think about it all that much – it doesn’t really matter what he looked like fifteen years ago.  

 “I saw him out there again,” Alf says hunched over the pump. “Yer man with the red cap. I’ve got Colin in here moaning about him last night. Wants rid.”  

“Yeah.” I take the pint of pale and Alf waves my money away. He’s like this for the first one. I don’t come in all that often, so I let it slide. 

Questions come from around the L-shaped bar. What does he want out there? Does he chat? Is he lost? Does anyone know he’s there?

“He doesn’t talk much,” I say. “But I don’t ask much.” 

“He’s out there for hours,” a voice comes from the end of the bar, “it’s amazing he can stand it. The cold water with no wetsuit.” 

“It’s amazing the kind of pain the body can withstand,”  The old major passes his empty to Alf.

“That’s true,” Alf smiles as he re-fills. 

I take my pale and sit with my old school friends Jenny and Tom. We squeeze around three low stools and a dark wooden table. The sailing trophy cabinet towers over us as Jenny nurses a coke, having driven over. Tom’s got a pint of pale. 

Jenny plays with the gold locket around her neck as she talks. A gift from her grandmother that I recognise from my bedside table when we were seventeen. Her pink trainers bounce as she talks about moving in with a man eight years older than her. He works in sales and owns a place in the new estate by the big Tesco. Tom updates on lads that have joined the army and his brother who’s been sentenced to three months. He was unlucky by all accounts. He won’t go the way of their father. Tom says he’s sure of that. 

“How’s Cambridge?” They ask. 

“You know we have to wear cloaks to dinner,” I say. 

“No way!” They laugh. “Cloaks.”

We’re distracted by the old boys’ speculation. What sort of pain would lead a man to do that to himself every day? Running away from something. Could be war – we see them down here. Lads who’ve been in Afghanistan or Iraq. Could be gambling. That can ruin a man. Could have set his family on fire by accident when he was drunk. 

“Could be any and all of them,” Alf says. “We can only hold what we can hold.” 

“All this drama when you’re back,” Jenny angles her head towards me. “Why do you think he’s out there?” 

“Don’t know,” I look up at the keels and ropes dangling from the ceiling. “Why do you two think he’s there?”

I look at Jenny, then Tom, then back to Jenny. 

“Just some fucking freak, isn’t he?” Tom gulps his pale and Jenny looks down at the cigarette stained green carpet. 

****

It’s grey today. The sky and the sea match the stone harbour walls.

I watched him swim out around noon. He always looks the part. Red swimming cap. Sleek, fitted blue goggles. Whistle around his neck. Alternate breathing on every third stroke. His arms are short, but he looks to have the strength and technique to do a few laps of the course, yet he stops as soon as he gets to the far end buoy. Slaps his hand down onto the metal base and hangs off it with one hand. Let’s his body move with the tide. 

It’s been two weeks now. 

“All ok?” The saltwater splashes my face as I circle him mid-afternoon.  

“All good, friend.” He leans back against the buoy with his lop-sided grin, “Usual answers to the usual questions.” 

I laugh as I circle him. Unsure if I want him to take me more or less seriously. 

“I’ve got a new one,” I say. “Does anyone know you’re out here?” 

“Well,” the man laughs, “I expect most of the town knows by now.” 

****

Like all the towns on the coast, you drop in and climb out through one narrow road. Cars hide in the crook outside Mary’s store and wait for each other to pass. 

Mary sells semaphore bunting, shell ornaments and whimsical prints alongside regular groceries that people actually want. Something went on between Mary and mum when Dad left. I don’t know the details, but she’s always keen to tell me how well I’ve done, and she never asks after mum.

“He’s headed out there again,” Mary whispers into my ear as I place the choc ice on the counter. 

“He’s there every day,” I rummage for change. 

“You need your energy,” She pushes the change and the choc ice back towards me. Mary doesn’t charge locals. With her place on the hill and this shop, she’s not short of money. Only reason she keeps it open is to gossip.

“Thanks,” I start to turn around. 

“What do you think it is?” Mary grabs my arm and crouches down towards the counter. Her eyes dart towards two Asian tourists inspecting the bottom of a church made of shells. “The man in the red cap…he’s staying in my shepherds hut up on the hill…. I’m sure your mum has told you…”

“Yeah, she mentioned something.”

“I’ve barely had a conversation with him, but I wouldn’t call him unfriendly.” Her bright red lipstick gathers in the corner of her mouth.

“Right,” I say. 

“Do you know what I mean?” 

“No,” I say. 

“I ask if he needs anything,” Mary straightens up and raises her voice as the tinkling bell confirms the tourists’ exit. “He says no. I’m fine. But it’s the way he says it. With this friendly crooked smile.…do you know what I mean? What’s a man with a smile like that doing swimming out to the far buoy all day every day?” 

“He does smile a lot.” I catch the shards of chocolate as I bite into the choc ice. 

“Have you asked him?” 

“Why he smiles?” I say between bites. 

“Why he’s there,” Mary stares at me over her crescent-shaped glasses like I’m hiding something from her.

“No,” I glare back. “Have you?” 

“It’s not my place.” 

“Well.” I think about saying that it is her place because he’s literally staying in her place, but I don’t. Instead, I ask, “Does it matter?”

“Don’t you want to know?” She leans into me. “I mean you’re out there every day in case something happens…. I don’t see why you don’t have a right to know.”

No, I thought, I don’t want to know. 

****

It’s spitting rain and the choppy sea skittles over the rocks and foams into the bay. Fishing boats bounce against each other in the harbour.  

I watch the kids ride the small waves on the shoreline. They’re not to go past me. 

Red cap turns up later than usual. Nods at me as he ambles out on the tiny pebbles and dives into the water once he’s at waist height. 

I nod back and watch him plough through the waves and past the first and second buoys before slapping his hand down on the final one. He takes his usual position. Clings with his right hand and lets his body sway in the waves. 

I wolf whistle him to check he’s ok. 

He turns towards me. Waves slap him in the face. 

I give a thumbs up. 

He gives a thumbs up back. Same lop-sided grin.

It’s been a month now.  

****

“Can’t believe you actually live here,” My Uni friend Claire looks over one shoulder at the red, blue, and yellow fishing boats clinging to the harbour on moss coloured ropes. Then, over her other shoulder, at the shallow turquoise bay lit up by late afternoon sun. 

“Well I sort of live in between here and Uni,” I say as I watch red cap climb out of the water and grab his towel from the rocks. 

Claire and her boyfriend Gavin have walked the coastal path from his family holiday home four or five bays over. Gavin’s at a different college to us – we’ve met a few times but don’t remember anything about each other. He doesn’t act or sound like he’s from here, but he carries himself like he belongs anywhere. 

“Will you come back here?” Claire looks at the rusting lighthouse on the other end of the harbour, “After we graduate?” 

“And do what?” Gavin butts in. “These places are great for a week or two but…I mean, you know.” He nods at me like I understand.

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” I see tankers on the horizon in Gavin’s mirrored sunglasses. 

“I know,” Claire cups her hand over her eyes and blinks at me. “Terrifying isn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” I smile. “I try not to think about it.”

Claire smiles back as she scratches her ankle. She’s walked too far in pumps. 

“I told you the whole walk over.” Gavin bounces his trail-running shoe on the harbour floor. “We’ll be fine…my Dad can help you out with internships… or you can travel… I mean with our degree.”  

“This guy,” I nod towards the man taking off his red cap. I’ve never seen his hair before and it’s longer than I expected. Mousey brown and grey curls fall to his chin. “He’s been swimming out to the far end buoy every day,” I point to the swimming course. “Then just hanging on to it for hours. I mean like 5 or 6 hours.” 

“What?” Gavin screws his face and looks over his shoulder at the man. 

“I check on him every day,” I say. “But he’s content to just stay there bobbing in the water, looking at the horizon.” 

“Really?” Claire turns to face the bay, “Is he ok?”

“He says he’s ok.” 

“He can’t last out there,” Gavin shakes his head as he turns back to me. “The water’s too cold. No way he can stay out there all day.” 

“He does,” I say. “Then he walks away like nothing has happened. Same lop-sided grin on his face.” 

“Not possible,” Gavin shakes his head. 

“It’s true,” I say. 

“He looks happy,” Claire says as she watches him button up a white linen shirt.

“He does, doesn’t he.”  

“Happy?” Gavin screws his face behind his mirrored sunglasses. 

****

The late morning sun bounces into my eyes as I watch the regulars power round the course. It’s an impressive sight. Ten people ploughing into waves with such purpose. Neatly angling their heads for air.  

Each of them mumble “hi” to red cap when they pass the farthest buoy. 

“Don’t fancy joining them?” I shout over once they’ve passed. 

“No,” he laughs at me and turns towards the horizon. 

I follow his gaze. I want to know what makes him smile, but I just see a tanker and a couple of sailing boats. And blue. A lot of blue.  

“What you looking at?” I ask. 

“Blue mostly, isn’t it?” He shouts into the distance. 

Almost two months now. 

****

We all cram into the Boar on the last Saturday in August as jobs start to wind down. A few longer term caravaners try their luck. The swimmers and fishermen are in. 

The man in the red cap is the talk of the night – how has he manged it? Every day for two months? No wet suit I hear. I reckon he’s special forces or something. I reckon he’s killed a man with that stare out to sea. Reckon he’s had a breakdown. Doesn’t feel anything anymore. Could just be bad luck. It’s not one thing but it’s a mountain of bad luck things. Something’s made him think that the only thing that’ll heal him is the water.

“Stop making out like he’s interesting!” Colin slams his palm on the bar. “He’s given me a headache all summer long.” Colin necks his first pale and nods at the empty, “If anything happens to him, the Council will be all over me.”

“What do you make of it?” Alf nods to me as he pulls the pump, “Must be a headache for you too.” 

“At least I get some company out there,” I smile.

“It’s no joke lad,” Colin grabs the full pint of pale. “Your old man was the same. Everything was a joke to him. Never took his life here seriously enough. Don’t head that way.”  

I turn to Colin but he won’t look at me. He motions to Alf to pour me another one even though I’ve barely dented my first. I wait for him to say something more, but he just stares behind the bar towards the corkboard.

“We’ll get some beers into that brain box of yours Seth,” Alf slides the pint in front of me. “Give you a good send off before you’re back for Christmas.” 

****

“Seth,” My name bounces around my head. “Seth.” My bedroom door rattles on its hinges. “Wake up Seth! Colin’s asking for you to go in. The young girl from the village over has called in sick.”

“Yeah,” I croak. 

“Full day’s pay for a couple hours he said,” mum speaks through the door. “I’ll put some breakfast on.” 

I prop my head up and wait for the scent of sizzling bacon fat. 

My room is changing. The walls have been sanded free of blue tac marks and primed for a lighter shade of white. We decided that Oatmeal White will be warming in the winter and would catch the sun in the summer. 

The bed I unclasped Jenny’s bra on will stay. The desk that I learnt irregular French verbs will stay. The Nintendo Dad bought me will go. 

“I’ll get going with that painting next week,” Mum lets the egg slide off the pan onto my plate.  

I rip yolk open and spread it over the bacon.  

“Nice people. Outdoor types who walk the path in decent shoes. That’s what I’m hoping for. People who keep to themselves.” She sits down and pours herself tea from the pot.  

“Yes,” I gulp my tea. “Only those with breathable waterproofs are good enough to take my place.” 

“No one’s taking your place,” Mum places her hand on mine. 

“I know I was just…”

“It’s your room whenever you want it.” She moves her hand away and clasps her mug. “Anyway, the world is just opening up for you…I mean Cambridge…where did that come from? Your father wasn’t a clever man, and neither am I…. you don’t know what you’ve got ahead of you.” 

“Still another year to go.” I fill my mouth with beans, “I don’t like to think about it to much.” 

“I guess he’ll be out there again today.” She gulps her tea, “Hope I don’t get people like that staying….I mean Mary says he’s no trouble…but it’s the thought of him out there and why he’s doing it….that’s the thing isn’t it?” 

“He looks lost,” I say. 

“What does that look like?” 

“It looks like staring blankly at the horizon and water lapping into your face. That’s what it looks like.” 

****

I watch locals and blow-ins clamber in off the rocks as the high tide covers the bay in the late summer evening. 

Then I hear red cap’s whistle. 

I can see him. The usual position. Head back against the metal base of the buoy as he looks out to the horizon. I checked on him at the start of the shift and got the usual responses to the usual questions. The usual lop-sided grin as he let the saltwater splash his face. 

I’m there in thirty seconds. 

“OK?” I ask. 

“Could I grab a lift back?” He winces, “I think I’ve tired myself out today.” 

“You’re tired?” I feel my heart bounce against my chest.

“Yeah.” He grins, “I’ve been out here a while. You know that.” 

“How you feeling? Cold? Panicked?” I ask. 

“None of that.” He shakes his head, “All the usual answers to all of that.” 

“OK,” I throw him a float as my heart returns to normal. “Wrap that around you and grab on to the back of the kayak.”

His body weighs me down as I slowly bring us back to shore. I feel Colin’s eyes through the binoculars. I hear the chatter of the Boar’s Head in my ear.

“You know we won’t patrol so much out of season.” I take a rest from paddling and look over my shoulder at him draped over the back of my kayak, “Colin will be around but it’s really just for regulars.” 

“Aren’t I regular now?” He takes his goggles off but keeps his cap on. He doesn’t flinch as the sea laps over and into his green eyes.

“Regulars complete the course,” I say.  

“I’ve never really thought of it as a course,” he curls his lip and looks up to the sky. 

I let us drift. I feel I need to come back to shore with something. So I ask, “You not worried? If you keep doing this into the winter the water will get colder and the sea state will turn.” 

He leans his head back and lets it dangle off the side of the kayak as we float with the tide. 

“No,” he pulls his head back up and looks at me. “No. I’m not, but I get the feeling that you’re worried.”

I turn away from him and slam the paddle into the sea. His body slows me down as I scoop water left, then right, then left. I feel the frustration of the town building up inside me. Why can’t he just hold his shit together like everyone else? If he’s got a point to make, no one fucking gets it.

“You know the whole town thinks you’re running away from something,” I shout into the breeze as I paddle fast. 

“What do you think?” He shouts back. 

I stop paddling. 

We stay silent as seagulls squark above and the tide bobs us along. I turn around and look at him laid across the back of my kayak, waiting for me to respond. I suddenly feel a lifetime younger than him. “Aaaaahhh, never mind,” I grin. 

I start up paddling and we soon gather speed as I get used to the weight of his body. 

The smell of sweating moss fills the air as we near the rocks. I can picture my Dad. His blue eyes, freckles across his nose and light brown hair covering his ears. I can feel his hand helping me clamber over the rocks. Thinking about it now, he probably wasn’t very good at judging the tide. It moves quickly in the last half hour of the day and if you’re not local, you can easily get caught out. He wouldn’t have really known what he was doing either. 

Duncan Grimes is a social researcher and aspiring short story writer. He has completed creative writing courses at City Lit and is part of an active writing group in North London. He is working on his first collection of short stories. The stories span the English seaside, London and post-conflict Iraq to explore how people find a place to belong and loss they carry with them along the way. This story is intended to be the first in the collection. His work has been published as part of London literary night, Liars League.