This Time Next Year(14)
Minnie pulled out half a tin of cat food from the fridge door and decanted it into a saucer. Lucky devoured most of it, then he jumped up onto the counter and up again to the top of the fridge. ‘Oh, you found the only warm patch in the place, hey? You won’t come keep me warm next door?’ Lucky tucked his head into his body – a definitive ‘no’.
Minnie walked into the next room and lay down on her bed. The only noise was the ‘plip-plip’ of the dripping tap in the bathroom and the gentle hum of traffic from the adjoining road. She shivered, jumped up from the bed, pulled off Leila’s stupid dress and riffled through her chest of drawers for something warmer to wear. She pulled on tracksuit bottoms, two thermal tops, her thickest jumper and some bed socks, then she climbed back into bed.
She looked at her phone; she should try Greg again. She should call Leila too and cancel their lunch – she couldn’t face going out again today. A wave of exhaustion crashed over her. Now she was lying down, the adrenaline that had been fuelling the last twenty-four hours finally stopped pumping. As well as being shattered, she was also fearful of interacting with anyone else today. Knowing her luck, if she spoke to Greg they would argue. If she went out with Leila, who knows – they were close, but no friendship was impregnable.
She sent Greg, Leila and both her parents a text to say she was fine, not to worry about her, but she had a terrible migraine and needed to take to her bed for the rest of the day. Then she turned off her phone. Minnie didn’t get migraines, she never had, but no one questioned a migraine, no one expected you to soldier through; people just accepted it and left you alone to recover. She didn’t get these migraines often, only a couple of times a year, but they did tend to come on with remarkable regularity around her birthday.
Minnie reached into her bedside drawer for a small brown bottle. It was almost empty, only three little white pills left. They were powerful sleeping tablets she’d been prescribed during a bout of insomnia last year. She had been saving them. She generally slept better now, but it was reassuring to know they were there. Otherwise she would get anxious about the 3 a.m. wake-up, her mind churning and no access to an off switch. She popped one of the remaining pills in her mouth and swallowed it dry. It was only 11 a.m., but if there was ever a day she wanted to sleep through, it was her thirtieth birthday.
New Year’s Eve 2015
Minnie’s hammock was almost perfect. It was exactly the right angle, hung between two palm trees with the head end raised slightly higher than her feet. She could lie back and look out to sea while sipping her coconut through a straw. Her curly brown hair was damp and crunchy from her morning sea swim; her face lightly tanned and freckled from two weeks in the sun – the picture of contentment. And yet, there was something about the rough cotton fabric against her skin that irritated her and stopped her from truly enjoying this last moment in paradise.
‘I don’t want to fly this afternoon,’ she said wistfully to Leila, who was lying in the hammock next to her.
‘It’s the only flight that gets us back to Delhi in time to make our connection home. Plus it was cheap because, guess what, you’re not the only one who doesn’t like to travel on New Year’s Eve,’ said Leila.
Minnie let out a weary sigh. ‘Can’t we just stay here, live in hammocks and drink coconuts for ever?’
‘I don’t think Islington Council would let me work remotely. I doubt the vulnerable members of the community I look after would appreciate chatting to their case worker over Skype, from a beach. It doesn’t send the right message.’
Minnie laughed, twiddling a crunchy curl of hair between her finger and thumb.
‘You never know. I just have this real Sunday-night back-to-school feeling, don’t you? In seventy-two hours we’ll both be back at work, you with Admin Pain Elaine and me with Pervy Pete and his stinky feet.’
‘Seriously though,’ said Leila, ‘how did these people get to be in charge? I see so many people desperate to work who just can’t get a break, but we live in a world where Pervy Pete and Admin Pain Elaine are the gatekeepers.’
‘Well, when you’re running the show I’ll expect to see it staffed by a wonderful array of waifs and strays – a chaotic, shambolic utopia.’
Leila laughed. ‘That’s the manifesto I’ll be running with.’
Minnie looked out to sea. Three local men in a blue fishing boat were bobbing up and down on the turquoise waves. One pulled the choke on the engine, and with an unhealthy-sounding roar it spluttered into life, emitting a cloud of black smoke as the boat chugged off towards the horizon.
Coming to India for Christmas had been Leila’s idea. She’d convinced Minnie there was nothing like a holiday to help you get over a bad break-up. Minnie had only left the UK once before, to Alicante on a package tour; the one year her parents had felt they could afford a family holiday. India was another world compared to Spain, and certainly compared to the cold, grey winter of home. Stepping off the aeroplane was a sensory awakening, like seeing the world in Technicolor for the first time.
There was something magical about being away with your best friend in a foreign land. She and Leila had discovered their new favourite food together (spicy samosas), laughed so hard they could hardly breathe as they careered around corners in speeding tuk-tuks, and had lain on the beach side by side, tearing husks from coconuts and telling their dreams to the stars.