This Time Next Year

by Sophie Cousens

  “Fuck him, fuck all of them,” Leila said, rubbing her eyes with her hands.

  “You know when I meet the right guy, and I mean a real man, not one of these dick nicks we’re at school with. When I meet the right man, he will believe in romance; he will get that it’s important. Life can’t just be about coupling up like yogurts in a multi-pack. There’s got to be more to it, right?”

  Leila looked at Minnie with wounded puppy-dog eyes.

  “Sure,” said Minnie. “Don’t listen to my mum, she’s just old and bitter.”

  “And when the right man asks me to marry him, I expect him to deliver the fairy tale. I want unicorns, I want doves, I want the whole fucking Disney fest.”

  “Is your future husband gay?” Minnie laughed.

  “Possibly,” she said, the wounded look leaving her eyes.

  Leila stood up and started prancing around the room, caught up in her vision for this future proposal. “He’ll ride into a field on a unicorn, dressed as a knight in shining armor, and there will be doves and mer-people and baby rabbits that sing like they do in Enchanted. There’ll be a massive picnic of all my favorite food, specifically Nutella pancakes, and there will be a giant blue princess dress for me to wear and I will put it on and reclaim the princess narrative and I will look visionary and he will say, ‘Leila, I love you, and if you want the fairy tale, I will give it to you.’ And I will eat those Nutella pancakes in my fuck-off princess dress and I will say, ‘Fuck yeah!’”

  Minnie laughed. “You know, it’s funny, that’s exactly how my dad proposed to my mum.”

  February 3, 2020

  “Mer-people?” said Alan.

  “Rabbits that sing?” said Bev.

  “You know neither of those things exist, right?” said Fleur slowly, looking at Minnie as though she had grown an extra nostril.

  “Look, I know it sounds weird, but she told me this vision she had for the perfect engagement when we were seventeen. It’s symbolic, trust me she will love it.”

  Minnie, Fleur, Bev, and Alan were sitting around the No Hard Fillings kitchen table. Minnie had called a secret meeting to commission their help planning Leila’s perfect engagement. She also thought it might provide a positive distraction from the potential shutting-down-the-business conversation that might be coming next.

  “The mission needs a secret code name,” said Alan. “How about Operation I Do, or Operation Unicorn, something we could mention in passing that Leila won’t suspect?”

  “I think Leila would be suspicious if we start mentioning weird operation names,” said Fleur, as she picked raisins out of a pain aux raisins that Bev had baked for them that morning. “My great-great-uncle was like a spy in Russia and apparently he so nearly assassinated Stalin, but then he had this really bad wheat allergy so it didn’t happen. I think his code name was like Baguette or something, which was supposed to be ironic, because bread was the only thing he couldn’t handle.”

  “What if we called it Operation Uncle? I could say, ‘My uncle needs an operation,’ or something. It might sound more normal bringing that up in conversation?” suggested Alan, spinning around and around on his bar stool.

  “Or I could just set up a WhatsApp group between the four of us and then we wouldn’t need to discuss it out loud at all,” said Minnie.

  She was beginning to regret asking this lot to help her—so far no one had offered any practical suggestions as to how they were going to pull off her plan.

  “My old Zumba instructor works in the costume department at the Royal Shakespeare Company—he might be able to loan us some outfits,” suggested Fleur. “Oh, and my astrologer owns a horse down in Richmond, so we could probably borrow it and fashion a strap-on horn if you really want a unicorn.”

  “Brilliant!” said Minnie, starting a list and putting giant question marks next to anything Fleur suggested.

  “I can do the picnic,” Bev said with a halfhearted shrug.

  “There have to be Nutella pancakes,” said Minnie, tapping her list.

  “I can dress as a merman,” said Alan. “A fellow man of the sea, like me.”

  “My old lecturer slash boyfriend slash driving instructor now runs an animatronics studio. I bet he could find us some weird talking animals. He owes me a favor and a thousand pounds’ bail money,” said Fleur.

  The others looked at her to elaborate; there was a lot to unpack in that sentence. Minnie had come to the conclusion that either Fleur was a compulsive liar or she led an intensely interesting life outside of work. Fleur ignored their inquiring eyes, focusing her attention on the de-raisining of the pain aux raisins.

  “That all sounds great, Fleur,” said Minnie, writing another giant question mark next to animatronic animals.

  “You really think Leila is going to find this romantic?” Fleur asked, making the face of someone who’d just caught a whiff of cabbage left fermenting in old shoes for a week. “Sounds kind of creepy to me.”

  “She will love it, trust me, Fleur,” said Minnie.

  “We’ll all just decay into nothing in the end,” Bev muttered bleakly.

  “Oh, Bev, are you still feeling down? Maybe you should go and talk to your GP if you feel this low? Did you try going to one of those environmental marches we talked about?” Minnie asked.

  “I don’t think it will help.” Bev shifted on her stool and looked down at her hands. “I was going to go with Betty but she got chickenpox that week, so it didn’t work out.”

  “OK, well, I will go with you to the next one if Betty can’t, I think it would be good for you just to see how many other people out there care, Bev. And that reminds me, I bought you something,” said Minnie, running over to her bag.

  She pulled out the bottle wrapped in silver paper and a gold ribbon and presented it to Bev. Minnie rubbed her hands together and pressed them against her lips in anticipation; she couldn’t wait to see Bev’s face when she opened the gift. Bev gave her a quizzical look as she peeled off the paper. Once she’d unwrapped it, she stood stock-still staring at the bottle. Alan peered over her shoulder and read out the words that had been printed onto the front.

  “Bev McConnaty, 59,

  Wife, mother, fun-lover,

  Baker of pies and ever so wise,

  Loves M&S socks and Brian Cox,

  A friend so fantastic,

  Now she’ll last as long as plastic.”

  Then he looked up at Minnie and shook his head. “Why have you given her a tombstone on a bottle?”

  Bev started to cry. “Is this to remind me I’m going to die?” she sobbed.

  “No! No!” Minnie grabbed the bottle from her and pointed to the poem. “Look, it’s all the amazing things about you, branded onto plastic so you’ll outlast us all and you’ll never be forgotten!”

  “That’s what a tombstone does,” said Alan, shaking his head.

  “No, it’s because you said you were upset in the shower, about the shampoo bottle lasting longer than you!” Minnie looked back and forth between her friends.

  Fleur’s mouth contorted into a wide grimace, her eyes silently asking, “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Socks and Brian Cox, is that all anyone’s ever going to remember me for? And look how old I look in this photo? Do I really have that many chins?” Bev rested her head on the countertop, sniffing back tears.

  This wasn’t how that was supposed to go. Minnie had meant to cheer Bev up. How did she manage to get things so wrong sometimes? The bell above the door chimed in reception and then Leila appeared at the kitchen door.

  “What’s going on?” she asked as she saw Bev crying and Fleur and Alan looking pained and pensive. “Oh great, you told them already. Minnie, I thought we said we wouldn’t say anything until we’d worked out a plan together?”

  “Told us what?” asked Fleur.

  “Is this about the cheese g
raters?” asked Alan. Everyone turned to look at him. “OK, it’s not about the cheese graters.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” said Minnie. “Bev’s upset about something else.”

  “Bev’s always upset,” Fleur said.

  They all stood in silence for a moment. Alan slowly removed the list that was sitting on the countertop in front of them. Leila gave him a questioning look.

  “My uncle needs an operation,” Alan said with a wink.

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, and I’m sorry you are all so upset about it. Minnie, can we talk in private?” Leila said, beckoning her through to the reception area and then shutting the door behind them.

  “You OK?” Minnie asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Leila looked stressed and thin, her hair scraped back in a nondescript bun. She wasn’t wearing any of her usual color—just gray sweatpants and a mauve hoodie.

  “The bank won’t extend our loan. I can’t bridge the gap until our funding comes through.” Leila hugged her arms around herself. “I’m sorry, Minnie, I thought I could fix it.”

  Minnie watched her friend. She gave a slow sigh.

  “Maybe we could go back to that list of Quinn’s clients we delivered to. He seemed to think they’d all order from us again. It might tide us over,” said Minnie, scratching her nose between thumb and forefinger.

  “OK,” said Leila, nodding. “So we cater corporates for a few months until the charity funding comes through and regular orders pick up.”

  Minnie watched her friend try to paste on a smile, to look enthusiastic about this new plan. Minnie knew this was her opportunity to give Leila a get-out.

  “I don’t think we want to do that, though, do we?” Minnie watched her friend closely for a reaction. “It was supposed to be fun running a business together, and it’s not much fun anymore, is it? If we can only survive by baking for City boys, I might as well go back to working in restaurants and earn more. As for you, if you’re going to have this level of stress, it might as well be for something you’re genuinely passionate about.” She paused. “Ian mentioned the fashion job.”

  Leila looked up, surprised. “I wasn’t planning to take it!” Leila threw her head back and closed her eyes.

  “I didn’t think you would. I’m just saying, maybe we’ve come to the end of the road here. Maybe fate is trying to tell us something.”

  Leila sat down on the little bench by the front door and hung her head in her hands. Did she look relieved? Minnie hoped she looked relieved. Then Leila looked up at Minnie with a scowl—it wasn’t a relieved kind of scowl.

  “So that’s it then?” Leila shook her head. “Fate doesn’t want it to work so we’re done? I’ve poured four years of my life into this place, into building this business. There’s a way to save it and you don’t want to try?”

  “No, no, I just don’t think it’s what we want!” cried Minnie.

  “You’ve decided it’s not what you want. You haven’t even asked me! You think I’m not passionate about this? This whole business was my idea, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Where’s all this coming from?” said Minnie, her brow knitting in consternation.

  “I do all the shit stuff,” said Leila, throwing her hands in the air. “I deal with the banks, I fill out all the funding applications. You’ve never offered to help with any of that side of it.”

  “I have! I didn’t think you wanted my help. You just took control of it.” She was shaking her head, confused by Leila’s reaction.

  “So I’m controlling now, am I?”

  Minnie reached out to touch her friend’s arm; she didn’t know how this had escalated so quickly into an argument. She softened her voice.

  “Leila, listen to yourself. You need to start sleeping again, to . . . I’m sorry, but you look terrible. This isn’t good for either of us, this level of stress, and I don’t want you to be here just because of me.”

  Leila got to her feet. “Don’t tell me what I need. I’ve been slogging my guts out to make this work and now you’re all ‘oh well, if it’s not meant to be I’ll just sack it off and go back to waiting tables.’”

  “Not waiting tables, I was a chef,” said Minnie defensively, watching Leila through narrowed eyes.

  “You want to throw everything we’ve worked for away.”

  “No, I just think we should cut our losses while we’re still standing. What we wanted to do doesn’t work, we were naïve to think it would.”

  Leila stood up and walked closer to Minnie, pointing a finger at her chest, her eyes fierce with anger.

  “I remember the day we met. You were hugging your knees to your chest on this bench at camp trying to make yourself as small as possible so the world wouldn’t notice you. You were so self-conscious and afraid and I felt sorry for you. All these years we’ve been friends, I desperately wanted to give you back whatever confidence someone had stamped out of you. I thought if you just had someone to believe in you, then you’d come out of your scared little shell and this butterfly would emerge.” Leila’s face was growing red with rage. Minnie had never seen her angry before, not like this. “Maybe I was wrong; you’re not scared, there’s just no butterfly in there.”

  Minnie flinched. Leila had never said anything so cruel in the fifteen years they’d known each other.

  “Well, nice to know all this time I was just your pity project! I don’t need you to butterfly me, Leila, you’re enough bloody butterfly for the both of us—it’s exhausting.”

  They stared at each other, bulls in a ring ready to charge or run. Minnie made a move toward the door.

  “No, I’m going to leave,” said Leila. “You want to give up on this place, you deal with it.” And then she left, the door rocking back and forth against the bell in her wake.

  February 4, 2020

  Minnie sat on the garden step watching the cigarette between her fingers burn down. She hadn’t smoked for years, not since she worked at the restaurant, but there was something about her life tumbling down around her ears that had made her reach for the comforting feel of a packet of cigarettes in her hand. The nostalgia was more potent than the reality—the tobacco felt stale in her mouth and she stubbed it out after a few drags. That was another tenner she couldn’t afford.

  She heard keys in the lock and groaned—she’d planned to be safely hidden upstairs before either of her parents got home. Now her mother would smell it on her and there would be more cross words. She rummaged around in the cupboard under the sink for an air freshener. She found an old can of Oust and pressed the sticky nozzle. It sprayed up rather than out and went straight up her nose. She coughed and spluttered, rubbing her nose with her hands, trying to shake out the sensation of a nasal enema.

  “Minnie, that you?” called her mother.

  “Uh-huh,” Minnie called out, quickly hiding the packet of cigarettes in the bread bin.

  “Why’re you looking so suspicious?” asked her mother.

  “I’m not.” Minnie clasped her hands behind her back.

  Her mother wore black leggings and a top with beige and red patterns across it. It looked like the kind of fabric you found on bus seats. The top was stretching at the seams; her mother had put on weight recently and the eczema on her arms had spread up her neck and around her hairline in angry red patches.

  “You never stay at Greg’s anymore,” her mother remarked as she picked up the kettle and started filling it from the tap.

  “Greg and I broke up,” Minnie said flatly.

  Her mother looked over at her, dropping the kettle down in its cradle.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, you never said.”

  Minnie shrugged. Her mother stuck out her bottom lip, her eyes creasing into slits.

  “What’s that face for?” Minnie asked.

  “Greg seemed like a sensible boy—steady job, rents his own place.”r />
  Minnie exhaled loudly. Her mother watched her closely, cogs whirring. “He ditched you?”

  “Not exactly,” said Minnie.

  “Oh, Minnie, you’re not twenty-one anymore. When are you going to learn to stick something out?”

  Minnie shook her head. She felt a tide of tears build instantly behind her eyes. Her mother’s words had knocked a barely healed scab and the skin beneath was paper-thin.

  She watched her mother go through the ritual of making tea, pouring the water from a height, pressing the teabag against the side of the cup with the back of a spoon. There was something strangely comforting about the way her mother made tea.

  “I fell out with Leila too, so now I’m totally mate-less.”

  Minnie felt her shoulders start to heave and suddenly she was sobbing uncontrollably. Her mother was not usually good with tears, yet to Minnie’s surprise she put an arm around her, led Minnie through to the lounge, and sat her down with the cup of tea she’d made for herself. Through sniffing sobs she extracted the whole sorry tale from Minnie, about the fight with Leila, the conversation with Ian, Quinn trying to help them out by ordering pies for his clients but none of it being enough to rescue the business.

  Her mother listened patiently, only making the occasional “tsking” sound as Minnie spoke. She stood by the window titivating the net curtains to ensure they were evenly spaced along the rail. Once Minnie had finished, she came and sat next to her on the sofa.

  “It sounds to me like you’re better off out of it,” she said with a sigh.

  Minnie closed her eyes. Why had she been expecting sympathy from her mother?

  “Can I tell you something, Minnie? I always used to think that if you worked hard and you did right by people, life would come out OK. I had this sense the world was fair somehow.”

  Minnie opened her eyes and met her mother’s gaze reflected in the blank television screen. “When you were born, if I hadn’t helped that woman, we might have won that money, life might have been easier. But it went to her—someone with more money than she could know what to do with. The injustice of it got to me.” Minnie listened quietly, turning to watch her mother’s profile. “Still, your father and I got on, tried to save, to give you and your brother the best lives we could. Then we lost it all—bad luck, wrong timing, or your father took too big a risk. I don’t know.”