foxglove

Illustrated by Ella Clayton.

Kate, a young woman around 22 years old, is sitting on her bed. She pulls headphones out of her ears and turns to face the audience.

Liv helped me find the room online. Some website like Gumtree I had never heard of. Double bed. Garden access. Close to the tube station. Ticked all of the boxes that I knew I was supposed to have. I only agreed because Mum told me I wasn’t allowed a studio. She said it was partly because of the money and partly because time tightens and loosens and runs away with me when I know that people aren’t around. She’s referring to the Gap Year. Apparently, I couldn’t quite handle my liberties. My lovely, lovely liberties. Then again, other people called letting loose like that finding themselves. Growth. It’s a strange word, isn’t it? So subjective, I think. Mum likes to show off to her Book Club friends about how much University helped me to grow. But days often felt like bubbles floating out of reach, ready to pop. You understand, right? Please tell me if I’m talking too fast or spitting nonsense. My tongue has this habit of behaving like a pinwheel, swivelling insubordinately. I won’t mind if you interrupt. It’s just difficult to know where to begin. I guess I could start right here. Where I’m sitting. Mum calls this place my Ant Hill. People continuously coming and going. Moving in and out. Like living in the centre of a roundabout that has too many traffic lights. Right now, it’s me and Michael and Cynthia and Gerald and Lotta. I’ve only spoken to Michael once. He lives right across the hall and moved in after me. But I’ve avoided him ever since I found out about the snake. The landlord said no pets but Simon— I think that’s what he’s called— slithers freely, wrapping his blazing, scarlet body around the neck of Michael’s sink. The night that Michael whatsapped me a photo, I had a nightmare. My torso transformed into his basin and I just sat in my bedroom, immobilized with white, porcelain hips as I waited for someone to come and take this wet, thick mammal off me. Hold on, are snakes mammals? I don’t think so. No, they’re reptiles. Right? Whatever, I never listened in biology.

Where was I? Oh, Michael. Michael, Michael, Michael. He actually reminds me of my GCSE Biology teacher. Mr Bird. Got caught trying to DM Year 8s on Instagram. @birdylegend. Gross. And he smelt like ketchup. Anyhow, Michael’s a pain. But I don’t mind Cynthia. She lives right below me. Twice divorced. No kids. Takes trips to Reykjavik and Krakow and fills her walls with postcards. I hear her singing Sinatra when she’s in the shower and sometimes she invites me to sit with her in the garden. Our bodies collapsed on broken chairs next to the foxgloves. They reign high above the vegetable patch, shouting out their regency like purple french horns. She brings out a cup of tea and a Penguin for me. Not the animal- I mean those treats that are neither a biscuit nor a chocolate bar but something in between. A bit like her actually- not really a friend or a stranger but something in between. Right now, I feel a bit like something in between. Liv told me to download Tinder but put it on the Friend setting to meet people. I thought that would be the easy part. Graduate. Get a job. Leave home. Move to London. Didn’t even contemplate the act of finding people to call friends. But my office is just crowded with men who support Fulham. They’re more interested in their facial hair than making polite conversation with a tired graduate who eats grapes at her desk and spends her lunch hour on Twitter. Doesn’t stop them staring though or mistaking me for a Sixth Form intern and asking for cups of tea or calling me Kat instead of Kate and making remarks about… well, I quickly learnt not to wear skirts. 

This afternoon, I caught myself in a Youtube black hole, watching trailers for films that came out in 2007. So, I knew it was time to call her. She picked up on the sixth ring. For the first few minutes, she asked me about my day. How many LinkedIn profiles had I stalked? Had I been outside yet? Had I sorted out getting the shower fixed? Was Michael still playing Eminem at 3 am? Then, I heard the purring. The back of my throat felt like carpet. She had come back. She always comes back. 

Liv met Liv at a festival last Summer in Brighton. Yes, they both have the same name. Believe me, it irks me too. I didn’t go because I was working at a wedding back in Yorkshire serving tiny blue cheese tarts to Great Uncles and Grandmas and toddlers. The bridesmaids— cocky little devils— pulled faces. They spat them right back out into napkins to kick under the table with their tiny diamante heels from New Look. All matching. That was fun to clear up. Hiding in the toilet, I got all of Liv’s updates via her Instagram story, my Liv I mean. Pictures of the crowds and hot dogs and tents selling cheap sunglasses. And then there she was. In a cramped gazebo littered with winking lanterns. Videos of a girl in a white, lace dress and cowboy boots belting out her own renditions of Phoebe Bridgers songs. Not so slow and steady as Phoebe though. There was this hint of ferocity creeping into the melodies. An urgency. Liv’s caption read ‘Obsessed. Who is this?’. And then less than 15 minutes later, a picture of them together.

As of last Tuesday, there are now 7 pictures of them together on my Liv’s Instagram. But I have this. 

Kate leans underneath her bed and pulls out a scrapbook, leafing through its pages. It is crammed with photos of Kate and her Liv. They are all from early teenage years.

I don’t need to worry. 

Last week, Liv suggested that I go on Facebook and message her cousin Jenny. She had always been at Liv’s birthday dinners despite being quite a few years older than us and we idolised her. She gave us film recommendations and updated us on celebrity gossip that we were too young to understand. She moved here when we were in Year 11 for a job with the BBC. As an Assistant Producer or something like that. Whatever it was, it was impressive and meant that she came back to school to give a Careers Q and A during assembly in our final year. Liv got to go up at the end with a bouquet of peonies to thank her. I hadn’t seen her since. But, after a few messages back and forth, she asked if I wanted to meet. I knew she lived more centrally than me so I suggested St James Park. I like the way the Eye peeps out at the height of the trees, spying on you, and I wanted to hide by the flower beds and hunt for the Pelicans. I even brought a picnic blanket and strawberries and a bottle of red wine. Not a cheap one from Tesco but a proper one. The type that you would only buy for somebody’s birthday. I waited, kicking off my shoes as I lay down on the blanket. A girl walked past with similar blonde hair but it wasn’t her. She texted to say she was running late so I turned to Instagram. Liv and Liv were at a bar on the seafront. My Liv had her tongue out and a pina colada in her hand. She had always hated those at school. She used to say that rum made her queasy. I contemplated commenting but then Jenny arrived. She was on the phone. An argument. Still talking, she sat down tentatively and hardly looked at me. Her hair wasn’t as blonde as I remembered. There was a bruise on her cheek that she had clearly tried to cover with concealer. Whilst she put her phone away in her bag, I noticed it. Hanging around her neck. The necklace I had bought Liv for her 18th birthday. A gold chain with an opal gem that I had spotted in the window at the jewellers back home. It had been Liv’s birthstone. Jenny watched me stare at it. She fiddled with the chain with her fingertips.

Isn’t it lovely? It was from my boyfriend, she said. She asked if I wanted to touch it.

Kate continues turning the pages of the scrapbook until she reaches the end and places the book back under the bed. Rearranging herself so that she is lying on the bed, she pulls something out of her pocket. It is the necklace with the opal gem. She smirks.