This Time Next Year(83)

Leila stood up and started clapping as the designers came out for a turn of acknowledgement on the catwalk with their models. Minnie slumped down in her chair and clapped despondently. Maybe Leila was right. She’d never thought about it that way. Was she his platonic weekend girlfriend? A companion with no expectations, no dates or obligation. He could simply not turn up one week and she would have no recourse to be cross with him for standing her up. What would happen if she didn’t go tomorrow? They’d been meeting for about seven weeks now. If she didn’t go, would he call her? Would he be disappointed? Would it make him seek her out and commit to more than a post-swim bap chat?

The next morning she woke up at six, hungover from the fashion show and restless with indecision. She’d resolved the night before that she wasn’t going to go to the ponds. She had too much to do here anyway. She’d finally saved up enough deposit and found a flat to rent in Willesden – she’d picked up the keys yesterday. She needed to move her things out and get the flat set up before work tomorrow.

Six fifteen. But she desperately wanted to go to the ponds. She couldn’t deny herself the short-term enjoyment of seeing him. Six thirty. She had to leave now if she was going to be there on time. She got dressed. She’d head that way and then decide what to do. She could always go for coffee alone in Highgate. She didn’t need to go as far as the ponds if she decided against it.

Seven thirty. Who was she kidding? Clearly she was going to go and meet him. She walked up the path to the ponds with a sinking feeling. Testing herself like that made her realise how dependent she’d become on this weekly dose of happiness. She looked around for him; he was usually here by seven thirty. What if he didn’t come this week? What if he hadn’t come, and she hadn’t come, and he wouldn’t even have known she hadn’t come, so her stupid test would have been pointless.

‘Hey.’ She felt a hand on her elbow, a bolt of electricity.

She turned to see him looking down at her with a dimpled smile. Her blood pumped faster through her veins – an addict getting her fix.

‘I thought maybe you weren’t coming,’ she said, locking eyes with him.

‘Why wouldn’t I come?’ he said, staring right back.

They swam as usual, dried off and got dressed. Sometimes, when they dried off on the bank, she thought she saw him glancing at her legs beneath the towel. If she saw him looking over at her, he’d immediately turn his gaze and then she wondered if she had imagined it.

As they walked towards Barney’s breakfast van together, Minnie towel-dried her hair.

‘So, how’s your week been?’ he asked.

‘Good. I got the keys to my new place in Willesden. I’m moving in this afternoon.’

‘No more ticking clocks, or I could come and hang some in your new place, make it feel more like home?’

He gave her a lopsided grin.

‘No thank you. I am looking forward to some blissful tick-free sleep.’ She paused. ‘You could help me move a few boxes in though – if you don’t have plans?’

What was she doing? She was breaking the unwritten rule; she was smashing the bell jar, breaking the bubble. Their friendship only worked on Hampstead Heath, a flat move was uncharted territory. He turned his head sideways to look at her, a questioning expression in his eyes. She could tell he was thinking it too. It sounded like such an innocuous request, one friend asking another to help them move. They both knew it wasn’t.

‘Are you sure you’d want me to help?’ he asked, his voice quiet and serious. ‘I’d probably be more of a hindrance.’

He was trying to get out of it. She was stupid to ask. Why would he want to help her move house?

‘Forget I asked,’ she said, giving him an overly cheerful smile, crushing her cheeks into tight baby fists. ‘Clearly not how anyone wants to spend their Sunday afternoon.’ She skipped forward to get ahead of him; she didn’t want him to see her look disappointed. ‘Right, whose turn is it to buy the baps? I think it might be yours, my friend.’

They got down to Barney’s and there were a couple of people queuing ahead of them. Quinn hadn’t said anything in a few minutes, and Minnie found herself pinching the skin between her thumb and forefinger.

‘I will help if you want me to,’ he said softly. She turned to look at him as they queued for the van. She saw something behind his eyes: sadness, resignation? She couldn’t read him at all. ‘I have my car here today, I could drive you.’

Minnie was about to protest, to say it had been a silly idea and she could easily do it herself in an Uber, but then she stopped herself. The conversation with Leila had made her realise the extent of her feelings for Quinn. She couldn’t go on like this, just living for Sunday. She wanted to open the bell jar, take this beyond the heath, whatever that meant.

‘That would be mega-helpful, thank you,’ she said.

‘What are friends for?’





9 August 2020





It felt strange taking Quinn to her parents’ house. She had never brought a man there.

Once they were inside, she held her fingers to her ears and moved her head like a metronome.

‘See, relaxing isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know – it’s quite charming. It’s like the house where time lives.’