This Time Next Year(75)

‘Leila, I love you with all my heart, you crazy, sexy woman. If you want the fairy tale, even this incredibly weird fairy tale, I promise I will try every day to give it to you. Leila Swain, will you marry me?’

Then he pointed to the fake sparkly gold unicorn horn where his grandmother’s ring was glinting in the sunshine and the singing sheep on the front row started bleating out a sinister rendition of ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’.

Leila was crying and laughing, clutching her sides and gazing up adoringly at Ian, while everyone in the crowd started clapping and cheering.

‘Get down here, you mug,’ she called up to him.

The horse handler and the hedgehog in a tutu helped lift Ian down in his clanking armour. He lumbered over to Leila, crushing a tray of pork pies as he went, causing Bev to let out an involuntary yelp.

‘Well then?’ Ian said. ‘Will you?’

‘Of course I will, you absolute mentalist,’ Leila squealed, grabbing him with two hands and kissing him. ‘But first explain to me what, in the name of the weirdest trip imaginable, is going on here? Why are there mermaids and singing sheep and a hedgehog doing ballet?’

Minnie stepped forward with a Nutella pancake carefully folded on a pink paper plate.

‘This was your dream proposal, remember?’ she said, beaming from ear to ear. Leila looked blank. ‘Remember!’ Minnie said, nudging Leila, ‘We were seventeen, we were at my house watching romcoms and you said that when the perfect guy proposed to you it would be exactly like this. Well, not exactly like this, but you get the idea – it’s the romantic Disney fantasy you always dreamed of!’ Minnie spread her arms in a ‘ta-da’ gesture, waiting for Leila to click.

‘I have absolutely no memory of that conversation,’ said Leila, her mouth locked in a confused smirk, her eyes wide and unblinking. She turned back to Ian. ‘Tell me you didn’t organise all this based on some random conversation Minnie and I had thirteen years ago?’

Ian turned to look at Minnie and covered his face with his hands.

‘I thought it was a seminal conversation!’ cried Minnie.

‘It definitely wasn’t a seminal conversation,’ said Leila, laughing.

‘What’s going on?’ said Fleur, striding over to join the discussion.

‘Leila doesn’t remember the engagement fantasy,’ said Ian, shaking his head.

‘It was a seminal conversation!’ cried Minnie, jumping up and down. How could Leila not remember? She’d been so impassioned about it.

‘You are kidding me?’ said Fleur, glaring at Minnie with her hands on her hips.

Then there were whoops of delight from the crowd as Leila jumped into Ian’s arms and they both collapsed into a heap on the picnic blanket. As they started rolling around kissing, everyone cheered. Minnie smiled – even if Leila didn’t remember, she looked happy. Her friend was engaged to the man she loved, and now even Fleur had a tear in her eye.

Minnie’s tail started to vibrate. She turned around, patting herself down; she’d tucked her phone into one of the scales. She backed away from the group, using the phone as an excuse to get away from any more interrogation by Fleur.

‘Mum?’

‘Minnie,’ her mother was panting, breathless on the other end. ‘Something’s happened, I don’t know what to do.’

‘Is Dad OK? Where are you?’ said Minnie, holding a finger to her ear and walking away from the group so she could hear what her mother was saying.

‘I’m with Tara Hamilton at her house in Primrose Hill.’ Why would she be with Tara? ‘She had this turn, said she was having a heart attack and started hyperventilating – I think she’s having a panic attack. I thought I should call an ambulance just in case, but she screamed at me not to. She’s asking for Quinn, but I can’t find her phone. Do you have his number?’

Minnie couldn’t understand why her mother would be at Tara’s house. After all these months had she finally decided to meet her and hear Tara’s side of the story?

‘She suffers from severe anxiety – it probably is a panic attack. I’ll come, I’m not far, I’ll call Quinn on the way.’

Minnie turned to shout, ‘I’ve got to go!’ to the others, then hitched up her tail and started running towards the nearest road. She flagged down a cab on Bayswater Road and told the driver to hurry. In the car she called Quinn. He picked up straight away.

‘Minnie.’ He said it in a way that sounded almost affectionate, which was strange given how they had left things and that they hadn’t spoken in a month.

‘I think your mum’s had a panic attack,’ Minnie said briskly. ‘My mum’s at her house, she called me, said she was hyperventilating. She thought she might be having a heart attack.’

Quinn was silent on the other end of the line. Minnie listened to the sound of her own laboured breathing, the result of running through the park.

‘I’ll head over there now. Thanks for letting me know, Minnie.’ Quinn’s voice sounded hoarse.

‘I’m in a cab, I’m going to be there in a minute.’





13 June 2020





Minnie’s cab pulled up to the blue house and she slithered out of the side door. Slithered because she was still wearing a constricting mermaid tail skirt that limited her leg movement to five inches in any direction. She rolled onto her front and flapped her legs backwards out of the taxi door, so she could push herself to standing, like a totem pole being winched upwards. Dashing through the park, she’d unzipped the side of the tail but the zip only stayed in two positions, all the way up or all the way down, so she’d been flashing bright pink pants to everyone in the park as she ran. In her haste to leave, she hadn’t picked up the bag with her change of clothes in, only her handbag and purse. She shuffled to the front window to pay the cab driver.